Miami Herald - April 30, 2007
Peter Bailey

Pills -- enough to fill a shoe box. Meds she should have been taking.

"Living with HIV is painful," the 17-year-old Lakeland girl later told students last week at William H. Turner Technical Arts High School, 10151 NW 19th Ave. in North Miami-Dade.

Her words drew blank stares from the teenagers packed into Heather Green's life management skills class. Green said presentations like the one given by Lesley and her mother, Tracey Dannemiller, also HIV-positive, are critical in helping to curb the region's HIV/AIDS rate, among the highest in the nation.

But a decision last year by the state Legislature to eliminate life management skills as a state graduation requirement in 2007-08 has Green and dozens of school health educators around the state fearing that such lessons will no longer reach their students.

The health class, usually given to freshmen or sophomores, engages students in discussions on life-and-death topics such as sexually transmitted diseases, drug abuse and teen pregnancy, and offers them alternatives for confronting those issues.

The new graduation requirement mandates that students take one credit of physical education, with a downsized health curriculum integrated into it.

Florida school districts were given options to implement a new course -- health opportunities in physical education, or HOPE, which state officials said incorporates key elements of life management skills, or LMS, into physical education. Or they could offer a combination half-credit of PE and half-credit of personal fitness, which also would include some health education.

Miami-Dade administrators decided against implementing HOPE, arguing that the whole curriculum was "unsatisfactory," and saying that LMS lessons are already touched upon in other classes, such as science and social studies.

Leah Kelly, executive director of student support services for Broward County schools, said district officials have drafted a proposal to offer all the options, and provide LMS to those students who don't take the HOPE course.

"We like our LMS course because we feel those skills are important," Kelly said. Jayne Greenberg, Miami-Dade's director of physical education, said the district went with the PE/personal fitness option because both courses have some health components infused in them.

"Students will still get their health education, but not in a health class," she said.

But Green and other colleagues disagree.

They argue that while HOPE has its shortcomings, it should have been the one chosen because at least it integrated key elements of the LMS lesson plan.

HOPE is "not the best curriculum, but it's the best option we have right now," said Green, who plans to lobby state officials to reinstate LMS as a graduation requirement.

At Southwest Miami Senior High, John Drummond says his LMS class opens a forum for students to discuss issues that could save their lives.

"There are many kids who come in to talk about drug abuse and being suicidal," Drummond said. "Those students couldn't talk about those issues in any other class."

The scene in Green's class with the Lakeland visitors mirrored that reality.

"Why weren't you taking your medication?" one student asked Lesley, a junior at Lakeland High who voluntarily travels the country with her mother to preach HIV/AIDS prevention.

"They made my stomach turn," she replied.

She said she hid the pills so her mother wouldn't know she was wasn't taking them.

The class erupted in applause as Dannemiller announced it was Lesley's fourth day back on the medication.

In 1985, Dannemiller was diagnosed with the HIV virus, which she passed to her newborn, Lesley. Her former husband, now deceased, may have contracted it through intravenous drug use.

She wasn't invited back to work when folks in the Central Florida city heard the news, she said. It got worse: Their church no longer wanted them filling the pews. Soccer teams forfeited when Lesley showed up to play.

"Being the AIDS family can be troublesome in small-town America," Dannemiller told the Turner Tech class.

Lesley urged the teens "to live safely" because "sometimes I'm scared to die."

When asked why they came to speak, Dannemiller answered: "We're a simple kind of people . . . we're just trying to save your life."

Their story, Green said, may have done just that.
070430
MH070408

Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2007. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.

AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All information contained on this website, including information relating to health conditions, products, and treatments, is for informational purposes only. It is often presented in summary or aggregate form. It is not meant to be a substitute for the advice provided by your own physician or other medical professionals. Always discuss treatment options with a doctor who specializes in treating HIV.

Copyright ©1980, 2007. AEGiS. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content. .