Thoughts on Maryland's Sex Ed Program

[AngelaM]

Schools chosen for sex course in Montgomery
By Jon Ward
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Montgomery County [Md.] public sachool system yesterday announced the three high schools and three middle schools that will participate in a pilot program for a sex education curriculum that has riled some parents and activist groups throughout the county.
Bethesda Chevy-Chase High School in Bethesda, Seneca Valley High School in Germantown and Springbrook High School in Silver Spring will take part in the high school course in which 10th-graders will be shown how to put condoms on cucumbers.

Martin Luther King Middle School in Germantown, Tilden Middle School in Rockville and White Oak Middle School in Silver Spring will participate in the middle school curriculum in which eighth-graders will learn that homosexual couples are the newest American family.
School system officials have noted that some schools were unenthusiastic about testing the new curriculum, which also will teach students to "develop" a sexual identity and that gender identity is "a person's internal sense of knowing whether he or she is male or female."
"We have some schools that stepped up to do it, and we have some schools that were recruited to do it," Russ Henke, the county school system's health education coordinator, said in an interview days before yesterday's announcement.
"A school may not be real pleased because of the controversy involved, but we need the representation from that area," Mr. Henke said.
Bethesda Chevy-Chase's acting principal, Sean Belson, yesterday said his school did not volunteer for the curriculum but was selected "by central office folks."
"We were asked so that different folks around the county would be represented," Mr. Belson said. "I felt it was something we could do."
Seneca Valley Principal Suzanne Maxey said her school also was selected. "They were looking for schools in different geographic areas," she said.
Mrs. Maxey said she and the school's health teacher met with 30 parents on the parent-teacher association's executive board, and there was "no controversy" about the curriculum.
"It was the same kind of feedback you're going to get from the kids: 'OK, thank you, she said.
Principals at Springbrook, Martin Luther King and Tilden were not available yesterday, according to their staff. White Oak's principal did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Advocates supporting and opposing the curriculum agreed yesterday that the pilot schools are well-distributed across the county.
"I think it's great. It sounds like a representative sample," said Christine Grewell, a parent and organizer for Teach the Facts.org (TTF), which backs the curriculum.
Steve Fisher of Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum (CRC), which opposes the curriculum, said: "You can make the case that the schools are representative of the county as a whole."
Mr. Fisher said his group is "disappointed that the pilot program is going forward. We think there's a lot of misinformation, biased information. We would have preferred that the county would have gone back to the drawing board and made it more balanced before they tested it."
The pilot program will be the first chance for parents to see how the curriculum will be taught and to provide feedback.
The county school board unanimously approved the curriculum in November.
The new curriculum was crafted with materials provided to the schools by a citizens advisory committee of about 20 people. The committee will collect feedback from students, teachers and parents, and include it in its report to the board this summer before a final vote on the curriculum is taken.
TTF and other curriculum supporters say the new course introduces information about homosexuality that students will find out regardless of whether they are taught about it. They have said morality has no place in the debate.
CRC and other curriculum opponents say schools are trying to displace the parents' role in teaching their children about morality and its implications on sexuality. They say the curriculum does not include all the facts about the health effects of homosexuality and the moral and religious objections to homosexuality.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington has said the curriculum is "clearly not reflective of our values."

[AngelaM]

I wonder if this course also teaches:

-a curriculum encouraging kids not to have sex until they're married, or at least out of high school
-a curriculum teaching that having sex as a teenager can result in the contraction of an STD or an unwanted pregnancy
-a program that seeks to actually educate kids about the life-altering consequences of having a baby out of wedlock -- like pretty much forgetting about college, spending your teen years with a baby instead of your friends, and looking forward to a fun life on welfare because you can't qualify for a good job without the academic skills most employers demand

Also, I found a conservative blog that stated the following. They wrote this email to the school:

"Dear Montgomery County BOE [cc: Gov. Robert Ehrlich]:

I strongly oppose your use of taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate Maryland's public school students with the Left's visions of a hypersexualized society, including discussion of anal sex and the like. It is absurd that our schools would provide our kids with the knowledge to indulge in their basest fantasies, much less neglect to educate them about the potentially disastrous consequences of having sex out of wedlock. And please don't attempt to justify these actions; I'm a former Maryland public school teacher from St. Mary's County and am well aware of how our districts operate. It is because of ridiculousness such as this that I am now a "former" teacher in Maryland.

http://www.therightreport.com/bothwe...l_indoctr.html

Best,
Trevor Bothwell
Host, therightreport.com"

The response he got back was an automated one that stated:
"The message referenced in the details below was not delivered due to inappropriate content. It surpassed the threshold set in the Adult Content dictionary.

The action on the message fell into the following category:

Messages that were dropped (Content Filtering)

If you believe the message was blocked in error, please resend it to "Help_Desk@fc.mcps.k12.md.us" and include the name of the intended recipient so it can be forwarded.

E-mail Administrator, Montgomery County Public Schools"

He goes on to say "I'm struggling to pinpoint exactly which portion of my letter "surpassed the threshold set in the Adult Content dictionary," but my guess is that the words "anal sex" might have had something to do with it.

So, you got that? It's "inappropriate" for one adult to write to a group of adults expressing concern over topics addressed in a school district's curriculum (indeed, the board's own web server admits the terms "anal," "sex," "anal sex," "hypersexualized," or any combination thereof, violate standards of appropriate language laid out in the "Adult Content dictionary" and are thus filtered from receipt by the school board), but it's apparently fine and dandy to reference such terminology in schools filled with impressionable tenth-graders.

Email the Montgomery County Board of Education at boe@fc.mcps.k12.md.us. Oh, and be sure not to offend their delicate sensibilities by mentioning sexual terms that are good enough for our adolescents but not those who thrust this smut upon them."

I thought the automated email was amusing and ironic.

[marg]

Well from the tiny bit of info in that article it's hard to tell what they are teaching.

Angela asks:
-a curriculum encouraging kids not to have sex until they're married, or at least out of high school
-a curriculum teaching that having sex as a teenager can result in the contraction of an STD or an unwanted pregnancy
-a program that seeks to actually educate kids about the life-altering consequences of having a baby out of wedlock..."

I can't say anything about MD but our local school system is teaching that. The district, one of the largest in the country, as well as the system in the state's largest SMSA and several other systems in the state have a abstinence only sex ed policy. Actually there are state laws that strictly limit what teachers can teach. And no surprise we have the 9th largest teen pregnancy rate in the country.

Our local school district went so far as to refuse to particpate in the CDC's survey on the sexual activity of teens. The results of that study are used to determine how federal dollars are spent on disease prevention and education programs. Why? They were afraid - I kid you not - that asking the questions would encourage kids to have sex. That's right. If Suzy reads the question "Have you had intercourse in the past year?" she's going to think "wow everybody else is doing it I need to have sex too." Seems crazy doesn't it.

[AngelaM]

Our local schools offer a sex ed program but from what I understand, participating is voluntary and requires parental approval. Parents have the right to review the curriculum in advance and have the option to not have their child attend.

Are all schools doing this or is it offered regardless of parental approval?

[AngelaM]

Originally posted by Andiamo
Question for everyone ... when did graduate high school and what kind (if any) of sex ed did you have?

We were taught about body parts and functions in biology class. Not a sex ed class.

[marg]

Well I went to Catholic school and imagine my surprise when I found out years later that our sex ed was far more extensive than most of my friends who went to public school, lol!

Sophmore year we had a class called health and hygiene or something like that. It was taught by a lay person. She happened to also be the phys ed teacher so she knew all of us pretty well. It was the basic mechanics of how it all works. She was cool and it was easy to ask questions. Of course many of the aspects of reproduction were covered in biology class.

Senior year we had a class taught Love, Sex and Marriage. (In my opinion it should have been earlier.) We had very frank conversations about all aspects of sex including heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, and masturbation. I even remember one class that focused on "sexual perversions" including beastiality, S&M, etc.

We talked about premarital sex and extramarital sex. We were of course told that premarital sex was not a good idea, but we certainly weren't told we'd burn in hell if we did it. The presentation focused more on the posittives of waiting.

We discussed various methods of birth control though no one demonstrated how to apply a condom. The class was taught by a priest and no subject was taboo. At times the discussions got rather heated. I know it sounds strange but I think most people enjoyed the class because we were free to express ourselves without any fear of censor.

BTW my college, a private non-rleigious school, aslso had a required course first semester called Health and Hygiene. We had to watch a film of a woman giving birth as part of the sessions on reproduction and birth control. One guy ran out of the room to throw up!

[AngelaM]

I do have one question.

If a public school did not provide instructions on how to properly put a condom on, could you figure it out on your own from reading the instructions with a box of condoms?

Are our young people incapable of reading and following simple instructions? Its been a while since I've had the need for such a device but if memory serves, application instructions came with the box. I can see how it would be difficult to understand instructions on putting together a complex piece of equipment. Applying a condom is not rocket science to me.

[Natalie Rose]

My school taught sex ed and had a birth control clinic. I graduated in 1983.

[marg]

Angela, Just a guess but I would imagine that they feel it's better for the kids to learn how to put on a condon before they actually need one. They would hopefully be more likely to put in on correctly when they needed to. In the "heat of the moment" is probably not a good time to be reading the directions and trying to figure out how it works.

Gosh, condoms are the last thing I thought I'd be discussing today!!!

[marg]

Forgot to say I graduated in 79.