Board Accepts Funds : Foes of School Health Clinic Vow a Fight

A school board vote moved a controversial student health clinic at San Fernando High School a step closer to reality Monday, but on Tuesday foes of the clinic accused officials of ignoring the wishes of the community and suggested that they may take their battle to the courts.

The Los Angeles Board of Education voted to accept a grant of almost $600,000 to open three student health clinics, including the one at San Fernando High.

“We’re not going to quit--we’ll continue to fight,” Father Peter Irving, associate pastor of Guardian Angel Catholic Church in Pacoima, said Tuesday. He said that Parents and Students United of the San Fernando Valley, the community group opposed to the clinic, is “seriously considering” legal action to bar the clinic. He would not specify what action the group might take or when it would act.

Variety of Services

The clinics would offer a variety of health services--contraceptives, pregnancy testing, immunizations, treatment for drug and alcohol abuse and treatment of illnesses such as colds.

Parental consent would be required for students to use the clinic, and parents would be allowed to exclude particular services--such as birth-control counseling--they do not want their children to receive.

The board voted unanimously to accept the grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which has helped finance 24 school clinics nationwide, to fund the opening this fall of clinics at San Fernando High, Jordan High School in Watts and Los Angeles High School in central Los Angeles.

“The Board of Education didn’t listen to the people affected by the establishment of a school-based clinic,” Irving said. He said there was “massive opposition” to the clinic and denied that the issue is solely a religious one.

High Catholic Enrollment

Foes of the clinic at San Fernando High School have fought a yearlong battle, including protest marches and petition drives against the facility, fearing it will encourage teen-age sexual promiscuity. They say about 85% of the school’s students are Latino, largely Roman Catholics who do not accept artificial forms of birth control.

Board members Roberta Weintraub and Jackie Goldberg proposed the health clinics two years ago as a way to reduce the high-school dropout rate by attending to health-care needs and curbing teen-age pregnancy.