Sex by the Book

THE OREGON STATE SENATE is scheduled to vote this week on a
new bill governing statewide sex education that emphasizes common
sense. But it’s bad news for those pushing abstinence-only sex
education.

House Bill 2509 requires all public schools to teach
age-appropriate, medically accurate sex-education courses. Right now,
the state’s patchy funding leads to abstinence-only education in some
schools. But abstinence only, the bill’s authors say, is not “medically
accurate.”

Sydney York trains sex-education teachers for Portland Public
Schools (PPS). Here in Portland, the teacher assigned to teach health
is also assigned to instruct sex education—but there are only
three certified health teachers for PPS’ nine high schools. Two of
those are primarily PE teachers not paid to teach health full time, so
the people who usually wind up teaching sex education in the Rose City
are guidance counselors or science teachers who squeeze health into
their regular curriculum.

“They’re not going out of their way to make sure there’s a
health-education specialist,” says York, of local schools. “It’s very
inconsistent.” There is also no set statewide sex-education curriculum,
which means teachers can look up the state standards and receive basic
training, but beyond that, teachers are responsible for coming up with
the sex education materials themselves.

While current Oregon education law says that abstinence cannot be
taught “to the exclusion” of information about contraception, people on
the ground say that the low priority teachers give sex education makes
it hit and miss.

“They could bring in one presentation by one speaker and check off
the box,” explains Planned Parenthood Advocates Executive Director
Kellie DeVore. “If that speaker is an abstinence-only educator,
well….”

“What’s on the books and what’s being taught in the classrooms can
be much different,” says York. “There still isn’t money for enough
teachers and sometimes it’s just not on the school’s radar.”

An Oregon group that bills itself as “the only statewide,
classroom-based program that is implemented consistently” is actually
abstinence only. The Students Today Aren’t Ready for Sex (STARS)
program’s website applauds its success in reaching 65 percent of
Oregon’s middle schoolers.

“The goal is to help them with refusal skills and to delay the onset
of sexual activity,” explains coordinator Belit Stockfleth. STARS’
federal funding source bans them from discussing contraception and
Stockfleth acknowledges that by itself STARS does not meet the legal
requirements for sex education in public schools.

The state’s Department of Human Services (DHS) also offers
supplemental curriculum to schools that meet the law, including advice
about contraception, but the DHS does not track how many schools
actually accept or use that supplemental material. DeVore says that in
her experience, many Oregon schools are just using the STARS program,
and falling short of the law.

“STARS is not as comprehensive as we’d like, frankly,” says York
from PPS. York hopes that the new bill will make schools make sex
education a higher priority, but she is skeptical positive change will
come as schools slash budgets.

The need is obvious. While teen pregnancy rates have dropped 16
percent since 1990 in Multnomah County, the annual survey of Oregon
teenagers in public schools still shows many are having unsafe sex. In
the 2008 survey, 17 percent of eighth graders reported they have had
intercourse and 30 percent of those students did not use condoms during
their most recent experience.

“It’s parents’ responsibility to impart their values and schools are
the place to get factual information,” says DeVore, who reiterates that
abstinence-only education is not medically accurate or comprehensive on
its own.

In a public hearing about the bill on May 4, senators on the
education committee noted the other major change of HB 2509: moving
from judgmental language about sex education to more objective,
statistical language. If the bill passes the Senate, no longer will
Oregon state law read that “abstinence for school-age youth and
mutually monogamous relationships… for adults” are the “safest and
most responsible sexual behaviors.” Instead, teachers will duly note
that these choices are the “most effective way to prevent pregnancy and
the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.”

The bill will also bring sex education into all Oregon schools,
including elementary classrooms. “What is age-appropriate human
sexuality material for grade one?” asked Senator Jeff Kruse during a
hearing in Salem. The answer, from the Oregon Department of Education,
is ‘honest, useful, and accurate information’ for all ages. In grade
one, for example, that means a discussion about “good touch/bad
touch.”