Posted on 03/04/2004 5:26:13 PM PST by DemWatch
A New Mexico school district is debating a controversial plan to stop young kids from having sex. Its solution: Sex education starting in kindergarten.
In the town of Anthony, between Las Cruces and El Paso, Texas, a lot of children are having sex early and often.
“We ask them how many sexual partners they’ve had, coming in to get tested, and quite a few of them, in fact the majority, had anywhere from 10 to 15 partners by the time they got to high school,” said Colleen Runyan, a school nurse at Gadsden High School.
Already this school year the Gadsden School District has seen two elementary school students pregnant. Eight middle school students and 79 high school students have also become pregnant.
“That’s the thing now in middle school,” said one teen. “That’s how to get to be cool.”
“They’re not listening to the abstinence [message,]” said Runyan. “What are we going to do? These babies are going to end up being welfare babies.”
And it’s not just pregnancies. Runyan estimates 20 percent of high school students in the district have sexually transmitted diseases.
The school district and many parents are at a loss for what to do.
“We’ve had many parents going to our school board meetings asking for help,” said Runyan. “They don’t want to see this either.”
Gadsden Superintendent Ron Haugen says many of those parents are uneducated and just don’t have the skills to teach their children. Often times the kids go to other kids to get information about sex, and what they get is dangerously inaccurate.
One myth spread around: Smoking marijuana kills sperm. For one unlucky teen, believing in the myth resulted in pregnancy.
It’s because of situations like this the school district is now talking about stepping up its efforts for sex education at what some may consider a shockingly early age.
“The elementary [level.] Basically what we’re looking at is a curriculum to implement K-through-12 that deals with the whole concept of sexuality and those types of things,” said Haugen.
That’s right. Sex education beginning in kindergarten. But Runyan says such a program would not be a “how to” manual.
“This is how you arm these little ones. They have to learn about their bodies. They have to learn about their spirits, that they can say no,” she said. “It’s a whole gamut of wellness that we need to teach these kids.”
But Nurse Runyan says from what she’s seen, education still isn’t enough for some kids. She’s suggesting middle school and even elementary school students have access to condoms.
“I do think we need to offer the same services that we do at the high school because they’re becoming sexually active earlier,” she said.
But Superintendent Haugen says he is not ready to start handing out condoms to 12-year-old boys.
Just last Thursday the Gadsden School Board sided with the superintendent, saying no birth control shall be distributed to elementary or middle school students, but the high school will start handing out condoms and other forms of birth control immediately.
The board also approved a more aggressive sex education curriculum that will start with children in kindergarten.
In contrast, in Albuquerque Public Schools, sex education does not begin until the 5th grade. That school district does not provide any form of birth control.
Can you believe this..?
Boy howdy, that sex ed sure is working.
Sorry, I don't buy this. Mom and Dad understand quite well about the birds and the bees, they're just abdicating their responsibility. My great-grandfather dropped out of school when he was 12, Granted, schooling was much better those days even in rural Arkansas. Still, he and his wife, similarly educated, were able to raise 7 children and teach them all about sex and when it's appropriate and when it's not.
One myth spread around: Smoking marijuana kills sperm. For one unlucky teen, believing in the myth resulted in pregnancy.
Only when done very, very close to the testicles. Apparently it's the heat. In college, my roomate and I had a long standing joke about another use for our hairdryers.
Now that it's entered the zeitgeist, we'll never get rid of it. :)
Close. Soybeans contain lots of estrogen, and zillions of babies have been raised on soy formula, half of them boys.
My wife and I have enrolled our 5-year-old daughter in private religious school. We really don't want these people NEAR her.
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