Cara Fitzpatrick
Palm Beach Post, May 14, 2008

FORT PIERCE — Five months ago, the St. Lucie County School Board approved a controversial sex education curriculum after emotional petitions from supporters and opponents alike.

On Tuesday, with almost no comment from the public, the board approved the last piece of the curriculum, a video demonstrating the proper use of a condom. Four people spoke from the audience; two in support and two in opposition.

The school board voted 3-2 in favor of using the video, in eighth grade and high school. Board members Troy Ingersoll and John Carvelli dissented.

Ingersoll, the only board member to vote against the Get Real About AIDS curriculum last December, said, "You guys know how I feel about this."

Carvelli, who voted in favor of the curriculum in December, gave no public explanation for his vote against the video. He said he "expressed his concern" to Superintendent Michael Lannon in private.

Afterward, Carvelli said, "I felt we needed a curriculum change, but I was not comfortable with a condom-demonstration video for eighth-graders."

The video is available online at the district's Web site, www.stlucie.k12.fl.us, on the left side of the home page under Health Curriculum. It also will be available at schools for parents to view, upon request.

The video, about five minutes long, shows a male doctor and a female one providing messages about abstinence, a demonstration of the proper way to use a condom and a reminder that condoms do not guarantee protection against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.

Parents can ask that their children not participate in the lesson.

Lannon recommended Get Real About AIDS to the school board last year, after the St. Lucie County Executive Roundtable presented it to him. The roundtable, a group of 27 community leaders who spent a year researching sex education programs, was concerned that the district's health curriculum didn't do enough to combat the high rate of HIV and AIDS in the county.

St. Lucie County has Florida 's highest rate of HIV and AIDS among black residents, according to statistics from the health department.

On Tuesday, Dennis Corrick, one of the few to speak on the issue, commended the board for approving the sex education curriculum, saying it was "well past time to try to address this situation."

Bryan Longworth, a Port St. Lucie pastor and well-known opponent of the curriculum, said Tuesday that the video, despite its messages of abstinence, still promotes condoms over waiting until marriage.

He and another opponent, Michael Hofstee, also said district officials had not done enough to advertise the meeting or the video.

"This whole process to me ... has been a sham," Hofstee said.

Longworth said, "I guarantee you that the majority of parents in St. Lucie County have not seen the video that their children will see."