City students will for the first time be able to get condoms in city schools. By a vote of 4 to 3, school board members approved a policy last night that includes a condom availability program. Board members Van White, Cynthia Elliott, and Melisza Campos voted no.

The vote came after nearly a year of public discussions and presentations by various community groups.

More than 30 students, parents, and community members addressed the board before the vote last night, with students largely in support of the program and adults against it, often citing religious and moral values.

A lengthy discussion between board members followed the speakers. White said he opposed the program because it shifted the responsibility of sexual health discussions from parents to the district. He also said that medical data provided to district officials does not indicate that HIV/AIDS infections are dramatically increasing among city youth.

There is no compelling reason to start a condom availability program in city schools, he said.

White and Elliott also challenged the district's ability to successfully administer a sexual health education program, since the district is already struggling to educate students in the core curriculum.

"We can't even educate them in the three R's," White said. "Don't we have something better to do?"

But newly elected board member Mary Adams talked about her professional experience as a nurse working with AIDS patients, many of whom are young black males. The district and parents need to be concerned about the disease because the data does not tell the whole story about how HIV is transmitted, she said.

"It's not anecdotal, it's really an epidemic," she said.

Many people are unaware of their HIV status because they have not been tested, she said, and they usually do not show symptoms immediately after infection. People in their 20's who become symptomatic was were infected in their teen years, she said.

Nancy Sung Shelton, a parent and community activist, made one of the evening's most poignant comments. Even though she came from a caring household with engaged parents, she said, she became pregnant at 15. She said she was uninformed about condom use.

The board's vote changes the district's AIDS education policy to include the condom availability program. But the program will be implemented as part of a revised sexual health education curriculum that must be approved by the New York State Education Department.

District officials emphasized that the sexual health education curriculum begins with an emphasis on abstinence, and parents can "opt out" from having their children receive sex education or condoms in school.

The program will not be administered by teachers, a concern of many parents. Only nurses in the school health centers located in five city high schools and in nurses offices in the other schools can give condoms to students. None of the nurses are directly employed by the district, and the condoms are provided by the state.

Condom availability programs have been established in other urban school districts, and studies have not shown that they lead to an increase in teen sexual activity.

In a survey of ninth to 12th grade Rochester students, nearly 60 percent said they were sexually active.

Board member White, prior to the vote, tried to amend the policy to an "opt-in" choice for parents, but he did not have support to make the change.

Though many people said they did not like the idea of condoms being available in schools, they said it was a "common sense" solution to a public health problem.