Not even closeTHE FAIRFAX COUNTY Board of Supervisors voted along party lines Monday to support a School Board initiative prying into the supposed sex lives of county students, with Democrats for and Republicans against.
The survey has been broadened from previous years to include questions about the number of sexual partners and (in an ever-so-trendy effort to be hip) the oral sex habits of teenagers.
I'm still looking to see if I can find a website that's reporting on this and providing the full story without a fee requirement.
The county is preparing to administer its second survey on at-risk behavior to local school children, but the addition of sex questions is drawing sharp criticism.
In fact, some are now questioning whether the $60,000 cost of the survey would not be better spent on actual programs to pre-empt the risky behaviors prompting all the fuss.
County supervisors discussed the survey at length this week with most expressing support for the survey provided the sex questions were left out--as they were in the original 2001 "Communities That Care Youth Survey."
A staff working group suggested adding questions to the latest survey to learn more about the sexual experiences--including information about sexual partners and knowledge of sexually transmitted diseases--of county teenagers.
Supervisor Stuart Mendelsohn (R-Dranesville) unsuccessfully pushed to have the Board of Supervisors and School Board defer giving the survey a green light until further information could be provided about how answers to such questions would be used and whether such questions can even be asked at all under federal guidelines.
Last week, the School Board received a recommendation to use the survey money to pay for alcohol and drug prevention services and to refer all survey questions to its Family Life Education Curriculum Advisory Committee.
Supervisor Gerald Connolly (D-Providence) said not asking the questions simply will not make the potential problems go away.
"Young people's lives are at stake," he said. "We owe it to the community, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us all, to get this data."
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