February 27, 2010
By Bob Unruh
WorldNetDaily
A team of lawyers who advocate for parental rights is working with parents whose children attend Ventura High School in Southern California to raise a formal objection after teachers had students fill out a survey on sex with questions such as "Are you sexually active" and "If not, why not?"
Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute, said the first step will be to file an administrative complaint.
"The parents have tried to reason with school officials about this, but so far administrators have failed to grasp that giving the students this survey without prior written notice and consent was illegal," he said.
The survey was reported in the student Cougar Press in December. The report apparently was not included as part of the paper's ordinary online presentation, officials said, but was obtained by a parent who posted the pages only for other parents to see.
The newspaper, in addition to the sex survey results, included a page of photographs of students revealing what songs put them "in the mood," a sex crossword puzzle and other advocacy for being sexually active.
A school spokesman said officials could not comment.
 Part of a Ventura, Calif., high school survey of student sex |
Dacus told WND schools should know that parents need to be able to trust their schools for the education system to work.
"When parental trust is breached, then school districts end up losing that participation," he said. "If school districts … want to be successful, they have to respect the rights of parents and not be caught doing things behind the backs of parents."
He said the primary issue is that a state law forbids such sex surveys without parental knowledge.
