DATE: Friday, June 13, 1997                 TAG: 9706130637

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   87 lines

OPPOSITION TO SEX ED IS QUIET - FOR NOW SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS MAY BE IN HOT SEAT OVER ISSUE IN 1998 SPRING ELECTIONS.

Kathleen A. Dudley, for one, will ask her school board to drop sex education.

Kids First, proponents of back-to-basics schooling, will make sex education an issue in the next school board election.

Raymond C. Rickerson, who battled sex education in court, still doesn't like it, but isn't sure people care enough anymore to fight it.

And the school officials who by this fall may have the power to keep or drop sex education say they've heard no complaints - but know that could change.

The Virginia Board of Education opened a big, long-closed door Wednesday when, in preliminarily adopting new standards for accrediting the state's public schools, it made sex education optional for local school districts. The board expects a final vote in September.

Gov. George F. Allen asked for the change. He and the board said it had nothing to do with the merits of such programs, but was intended to provide financial and scheduling flexibility to schools newly burdened with increased curriculum and graduation requirements.

But state officials also opened the door to rekindling the red-hot debate over whether and how to teach schoolchildren about sex.

Dudley, a Virginia Beach mother of five and member of Citizens for Better Education, which opposed state-mandated sex education at its inception in 1990, said money for sex education would be better spent on academics, particularly in light of Virginia Beach's tight city finances.

The current program - called Family Life Education because it also covers other health and social issues - doesn't stress sexual abstinence enough, and hasn't proved successful in reducing teen pregnancy, she said.

``I think definitely it should always be optional,'' said Dudley, who used her right to opt her children out of their school programs. ``This is not an academic program. It's a morals-based program. . . . If we're sending our kids to school for academics, then we should be teaching them academics.''

John T. Early Jr., chairman of Kids First, which supported back-to-basics conservative candidates in the last Virginia Beach School Board election, applauded the state Board of Education's decision.

Early said dropping sex education ``absolutely'' would be an issue next spring, when nine of the Virginia Beach board's 11 seats will be contested.

``We see the May 1998 school board elections to be a make-or-break year . .

``We see the general population seeing a moral decline, generally speaking, in the public schools. We see a reawakening.''

In Suffolk earlier in the decade, Rickerson unsuccessfully sued the school system to stop its sex-education program. He's still opposed to it - he thinks some of it is inappropriate for younger children and morals are ignored. But his daughter's in high school now, as are the children of other early opponents, and the issue is becoming moot for them.

Rickerson said it may be too late to oppose, seven years after it began, although he'd like to see it happen.

``I don't think you'll be able to get the school boards to change their minds,'' he said. ``I think, like with all programs, after it was initiated, it became kind of accepted. I think the community would still raise a voice against the same issues.''

But no one has raised a voice, area school officials said.

``Frankly, it is one of those things about which I have never heard a complaint,'' James J. Wheaton, a member of the Chesapeake School Board since 1991, said last month when the governor first proposed the option. ``I get phone calls about just about everything else.''

No more than 4 percent of students opt out of sex-education classes in any local city. Instead, students have complained for years that the classes are too weak, and don't provide enough of the information they want or need.

Less than 4 percent of 7,500 letters to the state Board of Education commenting on the new standards opposed Family Life Education or elementary guidance counselors - which are also made optional under the proposed school standards. And no school boards or members in Virginia sought the change, said David C. Blount of the Virginia School Boards Association.

``I haven't really gotten any indication that we'll be getting any new pressure based on that decision, so . . . I guess we'll have to wait and see,'' said Mark A. Croston, chairman of the Suffolk School Board. ``If anybody has any opinions on that, we'll be glad to hear them.''

``That's not to say comments won't occur, given the ruling,'' said Delceno C. Miles, vice chairwoman of the Virginia Beach School Board.

Dr. Elizabeth Daniels of the Portsmouth School Board doesn't expect her city to drop Family Life Education, but agreed with the state Board of Education on its reasoning.

``Sex education isn't about sex itself,'' Daniels said. ``It's about time and money and hiring teachers. The new standards have so many requirements.

``You'll probably have to hire four times as many algebra teachers, because all ninth-graders have to take algebra now.'' MEMO: Staff writer Nancy Young contributed to this report.

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