Schools Ask OK on Condoms : AIDS: Forms are being mailed to get parental consent for distribution to high school students in L.A. district.

Two months after the Los Angeles Board of Education voted to allow the distribution of condoms in high schools to help prevent the spread of AIDS, officials are preparing to put the plan into action by mailing parental consent forms this weekend to 134,000 district households.

The forms give parents the option of denying permission for their teen-agers to receive condoms. The letters must be signed and returned to their children’s schools no later than April 20. Condoms will become available on campuses soon after that date.

“Any time after that, the distribution will take place,” said administrative consultant Beverly Martin, who is overseeing the district’s condom distribution program. “Right now, we’re saying the latter part of April.”

The forms are to be sent out in nine languages. The form states that although the district teaches that abstinence is the only sure prevention method, “the proper use of a condom does provide some protection against sexual transmission” of the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS. The form also says the district assumes no liability in making the condoms available.

If parents fail to return the form--either in person or by mail--school authorities will assume that the student can receive condoms, Martin said. The procedure is modeled after the consent process used in high school sex education classes.

The district chose to mail the forms rather than send them home with students to help ensure that parents receive them, Martin said. But he added that the district does not plan any follow-up to make sure all parents see the forms.

The mailing of consent forms is the district’s latest step in implementing the school board’s decision to allow condoms to be passed out on high school campuses. The distribution plan was one of 10 recommendations approved by the board last January in an effort to strengthen the district’s AIDS education and prevention efforts.

Los Angeles Unified, the nation’s second-largest school district, joined such large urban districts as those in New York City, Philadelphia and San Francisco in approving plans to pass out condoms to high school students.

The district plans to purchase 13,000 condoms from the Los Angeles County Department of Health at a cost of about $600, said Martin. Initially, each of the district’s 49 high schools will receive about 250 condoms, he said.

Each high school will determine where and how the condoms will be passed out, said Martin, adding that most schools have set up committees to decide how they will handle the distribution.

School officials contacted Friday said a primary objective is to ensure that students will feel comfortable asking for condoms. At Palisades High on the Westside and Jordan High in Watts, the committees have decided to set up several distribution sites to help ensure student confidentiality.

At Palisades High, said Principal Gerald Dodd, two coaches will be part of the five-member distribution team, which will include the school nurse and two health teachers.

“We didn’t want (one location) identified as the place to pick up a condom,” Dodd said. Because the two health instructors are also counselors, he said, students could be visiting them for various reasons. And “many people go into the nurse’s office.”

Jordan High’s committee, which included the school psychologist, students and community representatives, decided that condoms would be passed out by various faculty members, including bilingual staff, before and after school and during lunch and nutrition breaks.

“They will (distribute) at different locations on campus,” said Assistant Principal Bob Kawamoto, who heads the school’s condom committee. “We’re very sensitive to the needs of students to protect their privacy.”