Portland, Maine: School officials on Thursday defended a decision to allow children as young as 11 to obtain birth-control pills at a middle-school health center, saying the new policy is aimed at a tiny number of sexually active students.

King Middle School will become the first middle school in Maine, and apparently one of only a few in America, to make a full range of contraception available, including birth-control pills and patches.

Students would need parental permission to use the city-run health center in the school, but they would not have to tell them they were seeking birth control.

This week, the health center asked the committee to make birth-control pills available to high school-aged students who were still in middle school and unable to access the contraception available at the high school, said Portland School Committee member Robert O'Brien.

Portland's three middle schools had seven pregnancies in the last five years, said Douglas Gardner, director of Portland's Health and Human Services Department.

The center has dispensed condoms since 2000, but because it could not prescribe birth-control pills, nurses referred the students to Planned Parenthood or Maine Medical Center.

Sex with a nonspousal minor under 14 is considered gross sexual assault in Maine, and officials said it was unclear whether nurses at the health center would be required to report such activities.

Michael Heath, executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, said he was concerned that young children would have access to any form of birth control, with adults playing a supportive role. ''It's at best troubling, at worst an outrage,'' he said.