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Pa. school district plagued with STDs
Times Herald-Record ^ | June 27, 2008 | Stephen Sacco

Posted on 06/28/2008 4:36:37 AM PDT by driftdiver

An estimated 10 percent of middle and high school students in the Delaware Valley School District are infected with a sexually transmitted disease. About two dozen teenage girls in the district have tested positive for pregnancy. And officials say there's one confirmed case of a student with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stepped in to track down students at risk for HIV, since the infected student is reported to have had multiple sex partners in the district, officials say.

School officials released the alarming figures in a letter sent home June 15 to the parents of the more than 3,000 Delaware Valley middle and high school students. Maternal and Family Health Services in Milford — a nonprofit health clinic serving male and female patients — alerted the district to the figures. Clinic officials say they estimate that more than 300 Delaware Valley middle and high school students contracted a sexually transmitted disease in the past year; and 25 to 30 girls tested positive for pregnancy. Students as young as 12 years old reported being sexually active, officials say.

(Excerpt) Read more at recordonline.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: abstinence; education; nastyhos; promiscuity; publikskoolz; school; std; teens
Students as young as 12 being "active"

The real agenda here is exposed with this sentence "Then, there's the health curriculum. "(The district) only teaches abstinence," McKean said. "They don't teach safer sex practices."

Also look at the graphs at the bottom, STD rates for female is significantly higher than for males.

1 posted on 06/28/2008 4:36:37 AM PDT by driftdiver
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To: driftdiver
I guess when they go to the school nurse they should get a penicillin flavored lollipop and a box of condoms.
2 posted on 06/28/2008 4:39:42 AM PDT by LukeL (Yasser Arafat: "I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize")
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To: driftdiver

These are “known” rates. Reality is likely higher, but it’s still below the rate reported in the recent “shocking” report.

BTW, teaching abstinence-only is wrong. These kids should be taught about condoms, too...about how the CDC notes that condoms are ineffective in preventing the spread of HPV, the number one STD noted in that study and killer of thousands of American women annually.


3 posted on 06/28/2008 4:40:37 AM PDT by Gondring (I'll give up my right to die when hell freezes over my dead body!)
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To: Gondring

‘BTW, teaching abstinence-only is wrong. These kids should be taught about condoms, too’

Do you really believe these kids don’t know what a condom is for? Do you honestly think the school or parents has never mentioned it?

I don’t.

I’ve read reports that close to 50% of women under the age of 45 have HPV.


4 posted on 06/28/2008 4:43:17 AM PDT by driftdiver
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To: driftdiver
An estimated 10 percent ...

Why estimate 10%? Why not 25% (as the CDC did) or 45%, or whatever it takes to scare people into thinking the system needs more money to teach preteens to screw around?

5 posted on 06/28/2008 4:43:25 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Tax-chick's House of Herpets. We're basking - how about you?)
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To: driftdiver

I thought the headline was anti-semitic until I realized it said STD’s and not SDT’s.


6 posted on 06/28/2008 4:51:16 AM PDT by Krankor (N)
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To: driftdiver

You should read all of my post again.

Condoms don’t stop HPV, and that’s the most prevalent example in the CDC study and thois one (along with herpes). Both are incurable.

They need to be taught this info.


7 posted on 06/28/2008 4:54:43 AM PDT by Gondring (I'll give up my right to die when hell freezes over my dead body!)
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To: driftdiver

I think the entire sex education debate is, and maybe always has been about far more than sex education. To hear the talk, it must take years and years of instruction (indoctrination) for kids to catch on to how pregnancy happens, how to prevent it, and about STDs.

You could cover pregnancy, contraception and STDs in one class session (including the banana or cucumber demo), give the kids a comprehensive (and short) pamphlet highlighting all the critical information, and then dismiss the class early.

Back before sex ed was even part of curricula, my 12 year-old friends and I knew all the basics, and our information was correct except we thought pregnancy was the automatic result of any sex without contraception.

This entire debate is about getting the kids in a classroom for hours and hours of indoctrination, year-after-year.


8 posted on 06/28/2008 5:02:02 AM PDT by Will88
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To: Gondring

I agree kids need that information. I guess where we disagree is that they aren’t getting it but ignoring it. the old ‘it can’t happen to me’


9 posted on 06/28/2008 5:04:15 AM PDT by driftdiver
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To: driftdiver

When you think about the 3 biggest problems of adolescence - sex, drugs & alcohol - we counsel abstinence with only 2 of them. With sex, the left argues that they’re just going to do it anyway so we should teach safe sex practices. By that logic, why aren’t we teaching how to do a flaming shooter; proper food selection with boilermakers; the correct use of a hypodermic needle; and what to look for in a good crack pipe? Something very, very wrong out there.


10 posted on 06/28/2008 5:05:24 AM PDT by Renkluaf
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To: driftdiver

see thread:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2037452/posts


11 posted on 06/28/2008 5:05:40 AM PDT by JohnLongIsland
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To: driftdiver

You really think that parents are teaching “condoms don’t work”?!?


12 posted on 06/28/2008 5:12:41 AM PDT by Gondring (I'll give up my right to die when hell freezes over my dead body!)
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To: Renkluaf

I agree, we are teaching our kids to be promiscuous. For the most part sex ed is encouraging the behavior. Like another poster said the information could be given in one session but the indoctrination takes a lot more time.

Abstinence works every time its used. Teach kids to value themselves and others.

I disagree tho that the left teaches kids to abstain from drugs and booze. perhaps on the surface but they certainly glamorize people who ruin their lives with it.


13 posted on 06/28/2008 5:15:01 AM PDT by driftdiver
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To: Gondring

“You really think that parents are teaching “condoms don’t work”?!?”

Are you referring to condoms don’t prevent many diseases and are not 100% at preventing pregnancy. I have taught that to my kids.

Make parents responsible. Some will fall down and fail however the responsibility belongs with the parents.


14 posted on 06/28/2008 5:17:39 AM PDT by driftdiver
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To: driftdiver

A 15 year old girl complaining that abstinence teaching is the cause of all this? Perhaps they ARE learning about STDs, etc, in health class? We did “back in the day”, but were not taught how to use condoms or any other type of “how to do it safely” instruction. Our parents taught us. We were not innundated by television’s constant scenes of teens having sex (just watch ‘The N’ network for teens). Even “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody”, a Disney program for pre-teens may not be talking about sex, but they are constantly talking about going on dates, etc. Perhaps the quote that they “get bored and have sex” should be a wake up call to parents to give them more chores? Never heard of washing dishes causing pregnancy - nor a job at the local burger joint.....

We had ONE girl the entire time I was in high school who got pregnant. Just one......... STDs and HIV were completely unheard of.


15 posted on 06/28/2008 5:18:18 AM PDT by captjanaway
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To: driftdiver
Are you referring to condoms don’t prevent many diseases and are not 100% at preventing pregnancy. I have taught that to my kids.

I believe you are in the minority.

16 posted on 06/28/2008 5:18:39 AM PDT by Gondring (I'll give up my right to die when hell freezes over my dead body!)
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To: driftdiver

.....For the most part sex ed is encouraging the behavior....

Brittany Spears sister having a bastard is more important as a reason than Sex Ed . The hollywood sex machine is the problem


17 posted on 06/28/2008 5:19:23 AM PDT by bert (K.E. N.P. +12 . Conservation? Let the NE Yankees freeze.... in the dark)
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To: captjanaway

Let me clarify - when I said “our parents taught us”, it wasn’t about putting condoms on cucumbers - they taught us not to have sex until we were married, that - gee - you might end up pregnant and a child is a huge deterent to going to college and getting a decent job.....


18 posted on 06/28/2008 5:20:29 AM PDT by captjanaway
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To: driftdiver

The cucumber teachers have been effective, it seems.


19 posted on 06/28/2008 5:20:46 AM PDT by RoadTest ( Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. But he spake of the temple of his body.)
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To: JohnLongIsland; metmom

Same school, two different sources. Looks like foxnews picked up the original.

Sure glad public schools are teaching these kids how to get STDs though.


20 posted on 06/28/2008 5:21:05 AM PDT by driftdiver
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To: Gondring

‘Are you referring to condoms don’t prevent many diseases and are not 100% at preventing pregnancy. I have taught that to my kids.

I believe you are in the minority.”

I don’t think so. I’ve met hundreds of parents through homeschooling that do a fantastic job of raising their kids.

Sure some dont (public and homeschool) but thats part of life. The stupid pass their stupidity on to the next generation. the schools certainly aren’t solving the problem.


21 posted on 06/28/2008 5:24:58 AM PDT by driftdiver
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To: driftdiver

Who says that the “Great Society” programs don’t have their benefits? LBJ and the Dumbocrats legacy lives on.


22 posted on 06/28/2008 6:10:18 AM PDT by Don Corleone (Leave the gun..take the cannoli)
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To: driftdiver
The reason abstinence should be taught is because it is right and honorable. That ought to be where the emphasis is placed, not on avoiding venereal diseases.

Young men and women deserve to be shown this and other opportunities to be honorable and virtuous, rather than taught tricks and tools for avoiding the natural consequences of dishonorable conduct.
23 posted on 06/28/2008 6:14:04 AM PDT by LearsFool ("Thou shouldst not have been old, till thou hadst been wise.")
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To: driftdiver
An estimated 10 percent of middle and high school students in the Delaware Valley School District are infected with a sexually transmitted disease. About two dozen teenage girls in the district have tested positive for pregnancy. And officials say there's one confirmed case of a student with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

What's funny is that this percentage is probably low when compared with most inner city districts.
24 posted on 06/28/2008 6:23:50 AM PDT by Antoninus (Every second spent bashing McCain is time that could be spent helping Conservatives downticket.)
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To: driftdiver
I agree, we are teaching our kids to be promiscuous. For the most part sex ed is encouraging the behavior. Like another poster said the information could be given in one session but the indoctrination takes a lot more time.

Exactly. When I endured sex ed in 7th grade, it was presented as a huge deal--assemblies, small group sessions, etc. But it just made the kids more eager to experiment with everything they had "learned." After this, about half the class became sexually active. A year later, at a kid's birthday party to which about 90% of the class was invited, there was a huge scandal because a bunch of them (13 years old) had engaged in sexual activity at the birthday boy's house.

You want proper sex ed? Forget this condoms and birth control cr@p. Show kids pathological photos of genitalia infected with STDs until they vomit.
25 posted on 06/28/2008 6:31:00 AM PDT by Antoninus (Every second spent bashing McCain is time that could be spent helping Conservatives downticket.)
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To: driftdiver

In my high school days we were inundated with LTD’s. The Ford variety.


26 posted on 06/28/2008 6:59:45 AM PDT by Sig Sauer P220
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To: driftdiver

There’s definitely a dilemma here... cause although teaching abstinence is the ideal right thing to do, it also obviously isn’t working in this case. So they either need to start teaching ‘safe sex’ to try to stop or at the very least slow down the spread of these STD’s, or else they need to take a good long look at their current abstinence program and see if they need to switch to another one. Either way, something’s obviously wrong with whatever passes for ‘sex-ed’ right now.


27 posted on 06/28/2008 7:07:28 AM PDT by Hyzenthlay (I aim to misbehave.)
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To: Renkluaf

A few months ago, I heard a PSA on the radio. A “mom” said, “We talk to our son about sex, and not drinking, and not doing drugs.”


28 posted on 06/28/2008 7:31:51 AM PDT by Arthur McGowan
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To: driftdiver

I suspect the rates are higher for girls in large part because the girls are more symptomatic and they more likely to seek treatment for other reasons and have the STD picked up. It could also be that there are a few infected male players infecting many girls.


29 posted on 06/28/2008 9:16:32 AM PDT by heartwood
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To: heartwood

Possibly, I’ve also heard that ‘modern’ girls are more aggressive than most guys ever were.


30 posted on 06/28/2008 9:49:11 AM PDT by driftdiver
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To: DaveLoneRanger; 2Jedismom; aberaussie; Aggie Mama; agrace; Antoninus; arbooz; AZ .44 MAG; bboop; ...

ANOTHER REASON TO HOMESCHOOL

This ping list is for the “other” articles of interest to homeschoolers about education and public school. This can occasionally be a fairly high volume list. The main Homeschool Ping List handles the homeschool-specific articles. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping list. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added to or removed from either list, or both.
31 posted on 06/28/2008 7:50:30 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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