Parents press for consent before school sex surveys

Some Massachusetts parents, outraged that schools quiz their children about sexual behavior, are pushing the state to require parental permission before posing questions like these:

''During the past three months, with how many people did you have sexual intercourse?"

''Have you ever given or received oral sex?"

''Which of the following best describes you: heterosexual, bisexual, gay or lesbian, not sure, or none of the above?"

Such questions -- posed in confidential, anonymous surveys conducted by state or local school districts -- are meant to help public health specialists and educators learn more about student behavior and uncover dangerous trends, including the belief among youths that oral sex doesn't count as sex.

To some parents, however, the surveys represent another example of schools reaching too far beyond the basics, delving into intensely personal issues that are best left to families, not just sex, but suicide and depression.

Last spring, a Saugus father complained about a booklet in AIDS given to his 7-year-old, and a Lexington father objected to a book given to his kindergartener depicting same-sex couples raising children.

Parents also accuse school officials of leaving them out of the loop about their children's education, whether out of neglect or arrogance.

In Newton, Reading, and Shrewsbury, complaints about surveys led school officials to remove certain questions.

Shrewsbury officials, prompted by a father's complaint last spring, reduced the number of questions about sex in its annual survey of sixth-graders. The school system is also giving parents a more detailed explanation of the survey and a form to fill out if they don't want their child to participate. Previously, parents had to call the school administration.

In Newton, Superintendent Jeffrey Young deleted some questions about suicide and drug use from a sixth-grade survey a few years ago, trying to balance the need to know about students' extracurricular habits with ''preserving some kind of childhood."

''And that's a hard balance to find," he said.

Reading made a similar move in 2000, deleting some questions about sex from a middle school survey in response to parental protests. The district plans on reintroducing some of those questions this spring, said Gary Nihan, the district's wellness coordinator. ''We felt that it was important to have this information." The backlash against such surveys in the Bay State so far appears to be limited to a smattering of parents.

But in New Jersey in 2002, all it took was a small group of parents to persuade state lawmakers to enact a requirement of signed parental consent before questionnaires are distributed to students.

Alaska also requires parental permission for surveys, said Jo Anne Grunbaum, a scientist with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which collects statistics on student behavior.

Now some Bay State parents want the same requirement. Massachusetts law requires that parents be notified about sex-education programs, but not about surveys.

Massachusetts school districts generally assume that if parents don't object, it's OK to ask their children to take a survey, administrators say. What varies is the degree to which districts alert parents to surveys and how easy it is for parents to exclude children. ''I can't say there's a rule of thumb," said Thomas Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents.

So far, in Shrewsbury, where parents are given a form to fill out, about 5 percent to 10 percent of students are opting out, said Patricia Degon, who oversees the survey.

School officials say some questions might make parents squirm, but reflect concern about teenage promiscuity. Shrewsbury officials would not disclose the results of their survey, but said the information about oral sex led them to spend more time telling students that such behavior that puts them at risk of disease.

Massachusetts participates in a national questionnaire of high school students called the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Developed by the CDC, it has been distributed to a sample of high schools throughout the state since 1990 and includes four questions about sexual intercourse, along with questions about diet, drug use, and personal safety.

Local school districts sometimes conduct their own surveys, asking the same or similar questions of younger students. Or they add their own questions.

Lexington, for example, asks high school students about oral sex and students' sexual orientation. Next year, it plans to ask students how many of them give oral sex and how many receive it, said Jennifer Wolfrum, the district's health education coordinator.

''That shapes the conversation about what kind of relationship kids are engaging in," she said.

But to Robert Bennett, a Lexington father of eight, school officials overstep their bounds by asking about the frequency of sexual intercourse or oral sex. ''With some kids, it might put an idea in their heads of something to do, something to try," he said.

Donna Pasquarosa, a Newton mother, introduced a bill in the Legislature in 2003 seeking a parental consent requirement for surveys after she and other parents complained about questions about drug use and suicide in Newton's survey. The measure is a ''By Request" bill, meaning that it is put forward by a nonlegislator.

''They are not putting us first and letting us know up front that these are the questions that are going to be asked of your child," Pasquarosa said. The measure to require parental consent, though, has no legislative sponsors and is unlikely to come to a vote.

Bennett said two of his older children took the Lexington survey without advanced notification to him. ''I was a little uncomfortable that they would ask that sort of question," said his son William, now a sophomore at Brigham Young University. ''It was kind of like these people are prying into really intimate sorts of things."