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AIDS Prevention at Harwood High?
Don’t Say Blow Job!

Vermont CARES still cares after banned from Hanrvood Union High School

Fred Kuhr

One day last November, John Olson,
education coordinator for Vermont
CARES, an AIDS service organiza-
tion based in Burlington, spoke to stu-
dents at Harwood Union High School,
in South Duxbury, concerning the pre-
vention of AIDS and other sexually
transmitted diseases. On that same
day, Harwood became the first high
school in the state to adopt a condom
distribution policy making condoms
available to students from certain
teachers as well as the school nurse.
Later that month, the principal of Har-
wood, Glenn Frank, stated that Ver-
mont CARES would not be invited

 

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back to present similar sessions in the
future. After parents complained
about Olson’s use of “street lan-
guage”, Frank was reported in the
Burlington Free Press as saying,
“There were certainly parts of it that I
feel were inappropriate.”

Questions remained unanswered after
the Free Press ran its story on No-
vember 27 covering this incident. Ol-
son and Vermont CARES have pre-
sented the same classroom instruction
as part of its “Face To Face” program
in other high schools throughout Addi-
son, Chittenden, Rutland, and Wash-
ington counties. Student reaction to
these sessions, including the one pre-
sented at Harwood, are generally fa-
vorable. Also, Harw0od’s new con-
dom distribution policy is a “model”,
according to Kate Hill, Executive Di-
rector of Vermont CARES, and the de-
cision to ban Vermont CARES “flies
in the face of their very realistic ap-
proach.” So why did they do it?

Hill places the majority of the blame
for Frank’s decision on the minority
of community members who fought
the condom distribution policy “tooth
and nail’’. Although Olson’s appear-
ance at Harwood on the same day was
coincidence, this minority saw Olson
and Vermont CARES as their next
target after losing the first battle.

Hill said that their policy at every
school is to use “language that lots of

kids will understand” including terms
like blow job and go down on as well

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as oral sex. According to Olson, some
parents are “a little surprised or upset
by street language...Some kids may be
surprised by an adult using this kind of
language.” Both Hill and Olson agree,
however, that this mix of technical lan-
guage and street slang is the best way
to reach all the students.

Frank stated the school’s new policy
concerning AIDS education in the
Free Press article, “...we will handle
that subject ourselves, with our own
teachers who are the best qualified,
because...the children know them and
trust them.” According to Hill, for the
“average teacher”, this approach
does not work. Most adults “bring
(their) own baggage about sex” with
them, she said. Hill also pointed out
that since teachers and students al-
ready know each other on a daily ba-
sis, many students would not be as
likely to ask personal questions. Ol-
son’s feelings on the subject are sim-
ilar. “I would love to see all educators
do this kind of a program,” he said in
a phone interview, “but that doesn’t
always work.”

Another complaint lodged by angry
parents was that Olson only spent five
minutes out of the 45 minute session
talking about abstinence. Olson re-
sponded by saying that he always tells
students that abstinence is a valid op-
tion, “but they've heard that already”.
He sees his job as getting out the facts
on HIV and AIDS to the students and
teaching them how to reduce the risk of
infection. The personal issues of HIV
and AIDS must also be discussed, he

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