School Board does good on sex ed | Eastern North Carolina Now

    It was quite an amazing scene, not for what it actually showed, but for what it did have included. There were no (zero) upset citizens protesting the new sex ed. curriculum when the School Board adopted the program last week. Chalk one up for the new superintendent, Dr. Don Phipps.

    Up until this year the N. C. Legislature mandated by law that "abstinence only" be the curriculum taught in schools. Then a small group of people who have been pushing a homosexual agenda in our schools, led by now retired Sen. Julia Boseman from New Hanover, found success in the legislature in getting homosexuals recognized as a "protected class."

    After scoring this success they turned to the sex education curriculum and got a bill passed that mandated that students be taught effective contraceptive measures. It was called the "Healthy Youth Act" and it was pushed as a way to decrease teen pregnancies. But in reality the idea was to expand the teaching of tolerance toward homosexuals in our schools. They could not get that part passed so they settled for a "camel with his nose under the tent."

    Legislative observers tell us that the only way they got the Healthy Youth Act passed was to agree to add a provision that parents could "opt-out" of any of the mandated parts of the program. The idea was that it would be easier to amend the law later to accomplish the real intent of the sponsors than it would be to have to start from scratch next time. What we have been told is that the sponsors did not fear the opt-out provision because they believe most students will pressure their parents not to embarrass them by pulling them out of the objectionable classes.

    Under Dr. Phipps' leadership Beaufort took the approach to the implementation of the program of having a broad-based community group review the instructional materials that are "approved by the state" for use and to develop implementation strategies for the new program. That group met during the summer and came up with the proposal that the School Board considered last week.

    You can read the materials given to the School Board by clicking here. These materials are what the School Board was given as a summary of the program. The actual instructional materials that will be used in the Health classrooms to teach students will be available in the school libraries for parent review.

    Commentary

    We've said it before and we'll repeat: Dr. Phipps is to be commended for the way he handled this situation. He involved as many parents and community members as he could get to participate. They were given meaningful involvement by his staff who led the effort. All of those people are to be commended as are those who participated.

    We think this is a genuinely tough issue and we're not sure what the best approach is. There are those who argue that we should not be teaching students to use contraceptives because that will encourage more promiscuous sex. And then there are those who argue that "they're going to do it anyway so we need to see to it that they get as much knowledge and help them make 'safe' decisions as we can." There is a dearth of solid research to support either side. The real weakness of much of the research is that it relies on surveys and about all we know for sure about that is that the surveys are notoriously unreliable and invalid in many instances.

    So we hope the School Board maintains a sound monitoring program to see what happens to the number of teen pregnancies under this new policy compared to the "abstinence only" policy used the last few years.

    And we are disappointed in some of the technical aspects of the staff's implementation plan.

    The op-out provision was not adequately developed. We see little evidence of a systematic approach to insure that peer pressure will not be the driver for both students and parents in the exercise of their choice. The staff should know that there is tremendous pressure involved in such situations and there should be a plan to deal with it.

    The other facet overlooked is how the system is going to deal with teacher discretion to deviate from the prescribed curriculum. We trust the principals will see to it that teachers strictly adhere to the adopted program but it would be sounder from a policy perspective if that was made clear in the policy the School Board adopted.

    But overall, it could have been much worse. There could easily have been a room full of angry parents last Tuesday night, but there were not. And that is a good thing in our opinion.

    Delma Blinson writes the "Teacher's Desk" column for our friend in the local publishing business: The Beaufort Observer. His concentration is in the area of his expertise - the education of our youth. He is a former teacher, principal, superintendent and university professor.