A Statewide Effort to Increase HIV and Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) Education in Public Schools: the California Experience

Background:
California has 2.9 million students in grades 7 through 12; one-third of reported STD cases are among 13- to 19-year-olds. California law mandates that students receive HIV/AIDS education from trained educators, yet less than 50 percent of teachers have reported being trained.
The California STD Community Interventions Program (SCIP) works with CDE and 45 local health jurisdictions (LHJs) to strengthen collaborations with local educational agencies (LEAs) to improve STD/HIV education in schools.

Objective:
1. Enhance LHJ/LEA collaborations
2. Increase LEA capacity to integrate medically accurate STD/HIV education into middle and high school curricula through training and technical assistance provided at LHJs.

Method:
State SCIP staff developed and distributed STD lesson plans to be integrated with HIV curricula. State and local SCIP staff provided over 60 fundamental and comprehensive STD/HIV training courses for teachers/school nurses in LHJs where LEAs showed interest in STD curricula and capacity-building.

Result:
From January 2002 to October 2007, over 1,500 school personnel received lesson plans. Over 1,800 teachers/school nurses attended the fundamental training, 585 participated in more comprehensive training, and 416 completed retrospective evaluations post-training; of whom 85 percent moved up at least one step on a five-point Likert scale post-training, increasing their abilities in describing STDs, discussing relationships between HIV and STDs, and providing STD risk reduction messages.
In a 2005 evaluation of the 45 SCIP LHJ programs in California, 40 percent had increased collaborations with LEAs either somewhat or very much.

Conclusion:
SCIP increased teacher capacity to deliver STD/HIV information and prevention messages. SCIP enhanced LHJ success in working with LEAs to better meet California education codes requiring trained educators deliver HIV education

Implications:
Working with LEAs is an integral part of preventing STD/HIV among youth. LEA/LHJ collaborations can improve the quality of content and delivery of STD/HIV education in schools.