LAGUNA BEACH : District Launches AIDS Program

Making good on a commitment to increase AIDS awareness among the city’s youth, the Laguna Beach Unified School District on Monday kicked off a program to educate students about the disease.

Timing the program to coincide with the World Health Organization’s World AIDS Day 1992, the district began what leaders say will be an ongoing communitywide drive to help protect youngsters from the deadly disease.

The campaign follows an AIDS awareness program endorsed this year by the school district, the Laguna Beach Community Clinic and the city. Laguna Beach’s per capita incidence of AIDS is among the highest in the nation. During back-to-back assemblies Monday at the Artists’ Theater at Laguna Beach High School, two men and a woman who are HIV-positive shared their experiences with students, staying through the lunch hour to answer questions.

School district psychologist Nancy Hubbell said the students were receptive to the message. “One of the things I thought very effective about the panel is it really personalized it for students,” she said. “The message that came across very clearly was that we’re all vulnerable, that we all need to be educated and to know how best to protect ourselves.”

The current drive to educate students was prompted partly by students themselves, who have complained to officials and teachers that they need more information about AIDS prevention. The program will, in part, inform students about services available at the community clinic, including family planning, AIDS education counseling and HIV testing.

Endorsed by the Laguna Beach City Council in September, the program emphasizes that sexual abstinence an refraining from the use of intravenous drugs are the most effective ways of avoiding the virus. The clinic will provide condoms for students only if they sign up for a counseling class.

As part of the week’s events, two speakers from the clinic presented a mini-course at the high school Tuesday that outlined clinic services.

Today, Hubbell and representatives from the American Red Cross and the Coalition for Children, Adolescents and Parents will begin training a team of student volunteers who will later form a peer education program. It will help counsel middle and high school students about making responsible decisions, such as postponing sexual activity.

Also today, the Thurston Middle School Parent-Teacher Assn. will offer a parent education meeting to provide basic information about AIDS and how to talk to children about the disease.

The week’s activities will conclude Thursday, when a community clinic representative speaks at the high school about how the AIDS virus is transmitted.

For more information, call Hubbell at (714) 497-7720.