Television Reviews : Sex Education in Our Schools on ‘KCET Journal’

The nationwide statistics are frightening: 57% of all teens become sexually active before age 17; one of every seven teens contracts a sexually transmitted disease, and teen-age pregnancy statistics continue to climb, even among girls under 14. When careless sexual contact can mean a death sentence, are we doing enough to protect our children?

Tonight’s thoughtful “KCET Journal” report, “Kids, Sex and Choices,” airing at 9 p.m. on Channel 28, takes an explicit look at how Southern California schools are attempting to deal with sex education, an emotionally divisive issue in many communities.

The program focuses primarily on two remarkable Huntington Park area teachers. Gail Rolf at Huntington Park High School uses role-playing to help students abstain from sex, but also very frankly tells those who are sexually active how to protect themselves.

Sister Carlann of St. Mathias Catholic School teaches abstinence only, with lessons of spirituality and self-worth. Both women reach their students with humor and a reassuring down-to-earth attitude.

In contrast, a group of angry parents pickets David Starr Jordan High School, where the first of three Los Angeles on-campus health clinics opened, making birth control information and contraceptives available to students.

At San Marino High School the only sex education to be found is in an elective called “Drivers Education and Personal Hygiene.” The PTA there wants comprehensive sex education in the schools, but community and board members feel it belongs in the home. A survey shows, however, that 88% of the nation’s parents don’t talk to their children about sex.

U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop makes an appearance to state that the only way to counter the AIDS epidemic is to educate children as early as possible. The program then shifts to a third grade class at Pasadena’s private Sequoyah School where Linda Maderas matter-of-factly teaches unembarrassed 8-year-olds about the human body, puberty and AIDS.

The program repeats Sunday at 5 p.m.