For a school district, giving students access to condoms in school is a dramatic step. I get the controversy. Passions run high when the discussion turns to teens having sex.

But let's be honest: many teens do have sex.

As difficult a decision as it was, the Rochester school board did the right thing last week when it voted, 4-3, to let high-school students get condoms from school nurses. It was responding to information provided by the Monroe County Health Department showing an increase in new HIV cases among city youth. The new policy may help protect students from a terrible disease.

Critics of the policy, including some board members, argued that the district can't continue to take on more and more responsibilities that aren't educational. Board member Van White went further: the new policy lets parents abdicate their responsibility.

And with the district graduating barely half of its students, White asked, why should anyone believe that the district can provide better guidance about sex than parents can?

Many parents said a condom program conflicts with the morals they are trying to teach their children.

White and many parents made compelling points. But it's hard for even the best parents to talk to their teenagers about sex. And children may love and respect their parents, but folks, some teens still choose to have sex.

In the public comment period before the board voted last week, parent and community activist Nancy Sung Shelton talked about her own experience. She came from a caring, two-parent household, she said. Her parents had talked to her about sex. But she got pregnant anyway, becoming a mother at 15. Her first sexual encounter was a life-changing experience.

School board member Cynthia Elliott said there are many community organizations and church groups that can help parents talk to their children about sex. But not every teenager and parent has a strong relationship with a community group or a church.

And relying on those groups poses a particular problem related to LGBT teenagers. Some people - faith groups included - are strongly opposed to same-sex relationships. Because of this attitude, many young males of color are reluctant to be honest about having sex with other males.

This is a huge concern, because most of the new HIV infections, nationally and locally, are the result of males having unprotected sex with other males. (Between 2006 and 2009, the Center for Disease Control says, among black males ages 13 to 29 who had sex with other males, HIV infections increased by 48 percent.)

Locally, while recorded new infections among city youths have risen, it's not a huge number. But the total is deceiving. People testing positive for HIV in their 20's were probably infected as teens, since HIV often doesn't show symptoms for years. This is why condom distribution in high schools can be such an important tool.

With the incredible strides made in treatment, there's the perception that HIV/AIDS is no longer a serious threat. But there is still no cure. Treatment is extremely expensive, and many people can't tolerate the drugs currently available.

Trying to preventing HIV infection is maddeningly complicated; there are no perfect solutions. It's easy to say that abstinence is the only sure way to prevent infection, but abstinence isn't the choice that every young person makes.

It's time to combat this 20th-century disease with a 21st-century mindset. Letting trained health professionals give students condoms in school, along with age-appropriate information, is just one more tool in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

This doesn't erase the role of parents, or make a mockery of their moral views. It supports parents in one of their most difficult tasks.

Most important, it may prevent a parent from hearing: "Mom, Dad, "I have HIV."

Mary Anna Towler's Urban Journal is on break; it'll return next week.