Submitted by crinadmin on
Summary: New York City middle and secondary schools will introduce sex-education as part of its curriculum as of September 8th, 2011 to raise-awareness about pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Yet while religious groups and some local residents have criticised the measure, other locals support the programme, saying that it is difficult to oppose in view of teenage pregnancy rates and the number of young people with H.I.V.
[9 August 2011] - For the first time in nearly two decades, students in New York City’s public middle and high schools will be required to take sex-education classes beginning this school year, using a curriculum that includes lessons on how to use a condom and the appropriate age for sexual activity. The new mandate is part of a broader strategy the Bloomberg administration announced last week to improve the lives of black and Latino teenagers. According to city statistics, those teenagers are far more likely than their white counterparts to have unplanned pregnancies and contract sexually transmitted diseases. “It’s obviously something that applies to all boys and all girls,” said Linda I. Gibbs, the deputy mayor for health and human services. “But when we look at the biggest disadvantages that kids in our city face, it is blacks and Latinos that are most affected by the consequences of early sexual behavior and unprotected sex.” The change will bring a measure of cohesion to a patchwork system of programmess largely chosen by school principals. It will also bring to New York the roiling national debate about what, exactly, schools should teach students about sex. Nationwide, one in four teenagers between 2006 and 2008 learned about abstinence without receiving any instruction in schools about contraceptive methods, according to an analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health. As of January, 20 states and the District of Columbia mandated sex and H.I.V. education in schools. An additional 12 states, New York included, required H.I.V. education only, according to a policy paper published by the institute. New York City’s new mandate goes beyond the state’s requirement that middle and high school students take one semester of health education classes. The city’s mandate calls for schools to teach a semester of sex education in 6th or 7th grade, and again in 9th or 10th grade, suggesting they use HealthSmart and Reducing the Risk, out-of-the-box sets of lessons that have been recommended since 2007. A city survey of principals last year found that 64 per cent of middle schools were using the HealthSmart curriculum... Parents will be able to have their children opt out of the lessons on birth-control methods. City officials said that while there would be frank discussions with students as young as 11 on topics like anatomy, puberty, pregnancy and the risks of unprotected sex, the focus was to get students to wait until they were older to experiment. At the same time, knowing that many teenagers are sexually active, the administration wants to teach them about safe sex in the hopes of reducing pregnancy, disease and dropouts... The new classes, which will be coeducational, could be incorporated into existing health education classes, so principals will not have to scramble to find additional instructional time. The classes would include a mix of lectures, perhaps using statistics to show that while middle school students might brag about having sex, not many of them actually do; group discussions about, for example, why teenagers are often resistant to condoms; and role-playing exercises that might include techniques to fend off unwanted advances. Schools that have not been offering sex education — the number is unclear because the city’s Department of Education has not kept a tally, a spokeswoman said — can hire a teacher to do it or assign the task to one who is already on the staff. The department will offer training sessions before the start of classes Sept[ember 8th]. Some New Yorkers of older generations remember explicit sex-education classes with frank talk about libido and demonstrations of how to use a diaphragm. In 1987, the state mandated the adoption of an H.I.V./AIDS curriculum in every school. For students in the city, that has meant at least five class sessions each year, from kindergarten through 12th grade. In those classes, younger students are taught to avoid touching open wounds, and older ones are talked to about sex, but not necessarily about preventing pregnancies. Opposition from religious groups and school board members eventually defeated a city mandate approved in the 1980s for a sex-education curriculum. But a survey by NARAL Pro-Choice New York in 2009 found that 81 per cent of city voters thought sex education should be taught in public schools. High schools in New York have been distributing condoms for more than 20 years. In the new sex-education classes, teachers will describe how to use them, and why, going where some schools have never gone before. To others, though, the topic will be familiar territory. Criticism from Archdiocese The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York called the sex-ed mandate “troubling” on Wednesday, and some Catholic officials said they would advise Catholic parents not to let their children participate. In the first serious challenge to the city’s mandate, which was announced on Tuesday, a spokesman for the archdiocese said the church’s position was that parents, not the schools, should educate children about sex. “Parents have the right and the responsibility to be the first and primary educators of their children,” Joseph Zwilling, director of communications for the archdiocese, wrote in a statement. “This mandate by the city usurps that role, and allows the public school system to substitute its beliefs and values for those of the parents.”... Edward Mechmann, a lawyer for the archdiocese, said he objected to the “overall lesson” of the city’s programme, “that abstinence is a nice ideal.” Mr. Mechmann said he would encourage parents to exercise an opt-out clause and exclude their children from lessons about contraception. “I’d also insist that parents inspect the materials to make sure there’s nothing really offensive or inaccurate being put in there,” he said. “We don’t say that about cigarettes,” he added. “We don’t say, here’s a filtered cigarette — it’s better than Camel.” Nicholas A. DiMarzio, the bishop of Brooklyn, said he planned to work with Catholic parents across the city to “assert their parent rights on this issue.” Some public schools that rent space from the church could have to find new locations in which to teach the required courses. Few other objections But as parents and members of community groups and religious organisations began to digest news about the new sex-education programme on Wednesday, there were few other objections. Souleimane Konaté, an imam who is the head of the Masjid Aqsa mosque in Harlem, said he was in favour of the requirement. “I think it’s a good idea,” he said. “I do talk about it sometimes, but people look at me like I’m crazy because the imams aren’t supposed to talk about it. It’s taboo in my community. But if somebody is doing it for me, I would support them 100 per cent.” Several parents said that teenage pregnancy rates and the number of young people with H.I.V. had made it difficult to oppose the requirement on moral grounds. Vanessa Mercado, the after-school programme manager at the Inwood Academy for Leadership charter school, said that when she attended Catholic school, she never had a sex-education class. Things should be different for her daughter, Ms. Mercado said. “Children are exposed to sex in so many forms now that it’s better they get the right information from someone,” she said.... [NB: This news story has been edited by CRIN]. Further Information:
pdf: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/11/nyregion/new-york-archdiocese-criticiz...