Sexual education programs at San Diego Unified schools depend largely on a grant from the Centers for Disease Control — a grant up for renewal next month.
Marge Kleinsmith-Hildebrand, the district’s resource teacher for HIV prevention and sex education, said a 10-year grant that provides roughly $275,000 a year ends at the end of February. Kleinsmith-Hildebrand applied for another five-year grant, but hasn’t heard yet if San Diego Unified will get the funding.
The CDC grant pays for two positions, including Kleinsmith-Hildebrand’s, as well as hundreds of substitute teachers to fill in for classroom teachers, who take two-day seminars to learn how to teach students about health risks and prevention. Kleinsmith-Hildebrand teaches the workshops, and also coordinates the district-wide Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
The grant is the sole source of funding for the program, but Kleinsmith-Hildebrand said the program could persist at the school level, because a number of teachers have already been trained.