City school officials are planning to offer tests for sexually transmitted diseases to all high school students in the coming school year, expanding a pilot program that uncovered a significant number of infected children. The program conducted last year at eight high schools found that 13 percent of about 3,000 students tested positive for an STD, mostly gonorrhea or chlamydia, according to the D.C. Department of Health. The expansion places Washington D.C. public schools in the vanguard of a growing number of urban school districts that test adolescents for STDs. About 12,000 students attend public high schools in the city. STDs are of particular concern to AIDS activists because they increase the risk of contracting HIV. The testing program was hailed in a report being released Wednesday by the D.C. Appleseed Center for Law and Justice as a positive step in the city's effort to arrest its growing AIDS rate, which is the highest in the nation and is considered an epidemic. Half of the city's cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea are among adolescents. The program, which has been discussed by the city school board, requires students to attend a lecture about STDs, but they can opt out of providing a urine sample for the test. All 50 states and Washington allow minors over age 12 to be screened for STDs without parental consent. 'The program tells us that a lot of students in the public school system are engaging in unsafe sex,' said Walter Smith, executive director of D.C. Appleseed, which advocates for more AIDS outreach and education in the schools. 'If 13 percent of these students are testing positive for STDs, those same kids could get HIV. A lot needs to be done to get the message out to the schools ... and this very high STD rate is an indication that what we've been doing is not effective.' In a 2007 study by the public school system, 60 percent of high school students and 30 percent of middle school students reported having had intercourse. Twenty percent of the high school students said they had had sex with four or more partners, and 12 percent of the middle school students said they had had three or more partners. The Washington schools first offered the tests two years ago at two charter schools. Health department workers presented a lecture on STDs to groups of 20 to 30 students in grades 9 through 12, none younger than age 15. After the lecture, students were invited to submit urine samples for chlamydia and gonorrhea testing at a health department laboratory. Of 987 students who attended the lectures, 68 percent submitted urine specimens, according to a report. Of those students, 9 percent tested positive for at least one STD. Test results were provided confidentially by telephone, and the city paid for treatment at the school or an STD clinic. Students who decided to be treated by a family physician were responsible for their own payments. Students were counseled about STDs and HIV prevention, were given notification cards to inform partners of the positive diagnosis and were encouraged to share the results with their parents. In the past school year, the program was modified and expanded to eight high schools. The Washington testing program is a near copy of a Philadelphia program that began in 2002. In the 2004-2005 school year, 30,000 students in 53 high schools attended presentations, and 16,000 submitted specimens for testing, according to a report by the Philadelphia Department of Health. More than 4 percent tested positive for chlamydia, gonorrhea or both. School systems in New York, Chicago, New Orleans and Baltimore, among others, either perform screening for sexually transmitted diseases or are preparing to begin pilot programs. In Baltimore, no parental consent is required. In New York, parents can elect to not have their child tested. In New Orleans, a parent must give consent for a child to take the test. 