SEX ED TO TEACH RESTRAINT

Seventh-graders will learn about sex based on abstinence as part of a new health curriculum approved Monday by the Cape Girardeau Board of Education.

In approving the health package, the board also requires an additional semester of high school health for graduation.

The health committee has been working for two years. The sex education component is one part of the kindergarten through high school health education program. The curriculum also addresses areas like nutrition and heart disease.

Dr. James Fletcher, Cape Girardeau physician, served on the committee and spoke to the board about the abstinence-based sex education portion of the curriculum.

"I feel sex education is best taught in the home by loving and caring parents," said Fletcher. "Unfortunately the world doesn't always work that way."

Sex education then falls to schools and teachers. Historically sex education has been divided into two camps -- safe sex or abstinence.

Fletcher explained that the safe-sex approach believes teenagers will have sex anyway so educators might as well arm them with information about contraception and sexually transmitted diseases. Some schools also distribute contraceptive devices.

But Fletcher said safe-sex education is a failure. He cited statistics that show federal money for family planning on the rise from 1971 through 1988, money he said has been used for safe-sex education. During the same period, the number of teen abortions and unwed teen births also rose.

Some schools, he said, have attempted to teach "abstinence plus."

"Giving teens a double message -- try to be abstinent, but just in case you can't, here's how to get and use contraception -- confuses and undercuts the positive message of premarital abstinence teaching," he said.

"When we think about our own kids, I think we want them to be abstinent until marriage," Fletcher said. "We want a curriculum that promotes values, not just a knowledge base."

While the program does promote values, it is not based on religion, he said. It teaches self respect, self esteem and how to say no to peer pressure.

Specifically, the board approved purchasing a text book "Me, My World, My Future," from a series called Teen Aid.

Fletcher cited two school districts that used the program. At San Marcos, Calif, prior to the program, 147 of 600 female students were pregnant. Two years after beginning the Teen Aid series, the pregnancy rate dropped to 20 students. At Spur, Texas, 11 of 450 students were pregnant at the start of the series. After one year, just one student was pregnant.

A required one semester health course will be added to the seventh grade curriculum beginning next school year. The abstinence-based sex education will be included in this course.

In addition, the new curriculum adds another semester course as a requirement for high school graduation. It first affects students who will enter ninth grade next year.

Also Monday, the board heard from parents lobbying for the addition of a varsity girls soccer program at Central High. The board placed the item on the agenda for the July meeting.

The board also approved the first reading of a policy change that would prohibit non-resident children of district employees to attend school in the district unless otherwise required by law.

In the past, staff members who lived outside the school district have been allowed to enroll their children at Cape schools.

Dr. Robert Sacha, whose step-son Brad LePage would be affected by the change, asked the board to consider ramifications of the change.