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 theyve 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.
Thats the thing now in middle school, said one teen. Thats how to get to be cool.
Theyre 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 its 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.
Weve had many parents going to our school board meetings asking for help, said Runyan. They dont want to see this either.
Gadsden Superintendent Ron Haugen says many of those parents are uneducated and just dont 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.
Its 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 were 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.
Thats 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. Its a whole gamut of wellness that we need to teach these kids.
But Nurse Runyan says from what shes seen, education still isnt enough for some kids. Shes 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 theyre 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.
I graduated in '66. One pregnancy in the school the entire time I was in high school (senior year, 18 year old girl). And the father married her.
I think I can identify the problem here.
The history of sex education in the public schools is this simple: After contraception and "safe sex" began to be "taught," the rate of teen-agers who became pregnant out-of-wedlock, as well as the rate of STDs, skyrocketed.
They are trapped in the fallacy that human beings are inherently good instead of fallen. They think if they just explain it to the kids, the kids will understand and everything will be fine. How many times must that fail before they realize it isn't working?
The ultimate perversion is the crack about the abstinence message not working. When bad things happen, they will inevitably turn and blame traditional values all the while heaping more gas on the fire. These people indoctrinate kids in grade school with stuff like homosexuality is normal, abortion is just a lifestyle choice, God is a bad word, freedom is a life free of consequences and everyone defines their own truth based on what feels good. Then when these kids start showing up pregnant and full of STDs, they have the gaul to say the abstinence message is working? Please! That's not it at all! The fact is that all their other messages are working all too well.
Families are being destroyed thus there is no moral compass for far too many children.
A good choice. I made the same choice for my daughter. She's in 6th grade now, 11 years old. It's been expensive, and I don't have a lot of money, but I have absolutely no regrets.
More of this twisted logic.
I agree. These aren't middle schoolers, where one might reasonably debate whether they're ready for sex ed, these are kids. Babies.
Thank goodness my son is grown. No way could I put up with this crap.
Lo and behold, teen pregnancy and promiscuous sex began to increase in that age group so the esteemed social educational engineers announced that sex education should begin in junior high school.
Then - OH NO! - it was discovered that junior high school aged children were having sex, getting pregnant and contracting STD's.
To combat this growing problem, the esteemed social educational engineers knew that the solution should be that sex education be available for children before they EVEN reach puberty. Fifth grade.
These ignoramuses deny, deny, deny that their clinical approach to the subject never, ever, ever titillates their young pupils and contributes to the problem.
I grew up in the 50's and learned about sex from my parents and my giggling girlfriends at whispered slumber parties. I also learned that for my own good, physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually I WAIT TILL I AM MARRIED BEFORE HAVING SEX. Case closed. Nothing further need be said.
Back in the 50's the teen pregnancy rate was a fraction of what it is now, STD's were mostly limited to the guys who picked up hookers, and children were born to and raised by their biological parents - not one parent and serial boyfriends, stepdads, stepmothers.
But that must have been an odd twist of nature because the esteemed social educational engineers saw something that worked and decided it needed to be fixed. What a legacy and massive social problem they have left our country's children.
If I was a parent in that school district, you can bet I'd be raising Cain at the school board meetings and PTA every chance I could.
BTTT
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