Mesa Verde school sex ed assembly raises questions
By Sylvie Belmond belmond@theacorn.com

Some Mesa Verde Middle School parents expressed concern over an explicit sexual education presentation made during an assembly at the school on Feb. 15.

Kaiser Permanente's Theater Education Program was invited to stage "Someone Like Me," a growth and development program that uses comedy, music, dramatic scenarios and a postshow question-and-answer discussion to let students know they're not alone on the road to adulthood.

"The program is designed to help middle school students understand some of the changes they will experience during puberty," said Jim Anderson, spokesperson for Kaiser.

But according to parent Monica Wilburn, the presentation went overboard and was offensive. Wilburn is one of several parents who said they would have liked the opportunity to preview the assembly to informatively decide whether or not their children should attend.

When the local mother picked up her children from school that afternoon, she said, she was appalled to learn that live actors overtly shared sexual information inappropriate for the middle school age group.

"This is not how I wanted my 12-year-old daughter to learn about oral sex," Wilburn said.

"I feel my children have been violated," she said in a letter seeking an apology from school officials.

Most Moorpark families support health education programs that introduce reproductive and puberty themes, but explicit sexual behavior shouldn't be included in the curriculum, said Matt Wilburn, Monica Wilburn's husband.

He also said that boys and girls should attend these types of programs separately because they have different concerns.

"One of the problems here is we feel most of the children haven't spoken up about what they saw," said Suzi van der Meulen, mother of two Mesa Verde students.

Some parents thought Kaiser's production would be more appropriate for high school students.

But others didn't doubt the program's suitability for middleschool youngsters.

Mark Van Dam, a Moorpark council member, thought the Mesa Verde assembly was informative and educational and initiated a beneficial debate between students and their parents,

"The Moorpark school district has done a tremendous job dealing with current issues and concerns that face our kids," said Van Dam, who teaches seventh and eighthgrade English at a public middle school in Chatsworth.

Because today's students are exposed to detailed sexual information at a young age, it's better to be proactive rather than reactive, said Van Dam, whose son also attended the event at Mesa Verde.

Statistics collected by the Center for Disease Control in 2001 revealed that 6.6 percent of students in the U.S. had sexual intercourse before the age of 13. About 45 percent of high school students and 79 percent of college students have already had sex.

Parents should discuss relationships and body image with their children early on because middle school youth know far more than adults expect, Van Dam said.

"We can't prevent them from being exposed to these issues, but we can control how they react," he said.

Although schools shouldn't have to teach children about sex, they've been compelled to do so because many parents are intimidated or uncomfortable about discussing the issue with their own children, Van Dam said.

But the council member agreed that a clear curriculum should be made available to all parents, teachers and students prior to an event.

School officials received both positive and negative feedback about the Mesa Verde assembly, said District Superintendent Ellen Smith.

The school district's human growth and development curriculum and sexual health education program are primarily taught in grades 5, 7 and 9 with parental permission, she said.

Kaiser had presented a similar program at the school several years ago, which everyone felt was appropriate, Smith said. It dealt with puberty as well as peer pressure and how to resist it. Selfesteem, depression and potential conflicts at home were also discussed, the superintendent said.

According to Smith, Mesa Verde Principal Kelli Hays plans to communicate with parents about the matter in an upcoming newsletter.

The principal apologized to those who were offended and assured parents they have the right to make decisions about the suitability of sex education programs for their children, Smith said.

Hays agreed that the parental notification letter sent out by the school did not contain enough detail for parents to make an informed decision, Smith said. But since the earlier Kaiser presentation did not include explicit and possibly objectionable references, Hays said, she felt she and her staff were caught offguard about the nature of some of the material added in recent years.

School officials and Kaiser will review the matter and see if anything should be done about future programs, he said.

Matt and Monica Wilburn said that school officials and teachers who organize these events should be familiar with the entire content of a program before it is presented to students.