Chicago’s new sex-education guidelines ignore GLBTs
Chicago’s new sex-education guidelines ignore GLBTs
By Gary Barlow
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
Chicago Public Schools officials approved more comprehensive sex education classes April 26, a move that may encourage some teachers to more fully explain alternatives to abstinence such as condoms.
“Age-appropriate, comprehensive sex education gives young people the information, skills and encouragement to be responsible,” Jobi Petersen, executive director of the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health, said in a statement. “We are thrilled that CPS took this important step.”
ICAH officials worked with youth leaders and CPS administrators to develop the new policy. ICAH said many Illinois students, including some in Chicago schools, receive an abstinence-only message that “offers no skills to develop healthy relationships or tools to prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.”
Although ICAH leaders praised the new policy as an improvement, it doesn’t specifically address issues of concern to GLBT students. A spokesman for CPS, Malon Edwards, said that would be up to individual teachers.
“Our teachers go through a workshop,” Edwards said. “We allow them in a sense to come up with their own curriculums. ÉIt depends on the school. If we’re talking about a school with a higher concentration of gay and lesbian students, their teacher may tailor the curriculum to those students.”
Edwards said the policy still favors abstinence.
“It emphasizes abstinence as the norm and as the only 100-percent effective way to prevent HIV,” Edwards said.
Abstinence does not appear to be the norm, however, for CPS students. The Youth High Risk Behavior Survey indicated that more than half of all CPS high school students in 2003 had engaged in sexual intercourse, 13.2 percent before age 13. Almost 20 percent reported having intercourse with four or more sexual partners.
The new policy requires sex education teachers to participate in training CPS currently offers but does not make mandatory. An ICAH spokesman said “anything that bucks that trend” toward abstinence-only instruction and forces teachers to receive comprehensive sex education training is “good news.”
By Gary Barlow
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
Chicago Public Schools officials approved more comprehensive sex education classes April 26, a move that may encourage some teachers to more fully explain alternatives to abstinence such as condoms.
“Age-appropriate, comprehensive sex education gives young people the information, skills and encouragement to be responsible,” Jobi Petersen, executive director of the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health, said in a statement. “We are thrilled that CPS took this important step.”
ICAH officials worked with youth leaders and CPS administrators to develop the new policy. ICAH said many Illinois students, including some in Chicago schools, receive an abstinence-only message that “offers no skills to develop healthy relationships or tools to prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.”
Although ICAH leaders praised the new policy as an improvement, it doesn’t specifically address issues of concern to GLBT students. A spokesman for CPS, Malon Edwards, said that would be up to individual teachers.
“Our teachers go through a workshop,” Edwards said. “We allow them in a sense to come up with their own curriculums. ÉIt depends on the school. If we’re talking about a school with a higher concentration of gay and lesbian students, their teacher may tailor the curriculum to those students.”
Edwards said the policy still favors abstinence.
“It emphasizes abstinence as the norm and as the only 100-percent effective way to prevent HIV,” Edwards said.
Abstinence does not appear to be the norm, however, for CPS students. The Youth High Risk Behavior Survey indicated that more than half of all CPS high school students in 2003 had engaged in sexual intercourse, 13.2 percent before age 13. Almost 20 percent reported having intercourse with four or more sexual partners.
The new policy requires sex education teachers to participate in training CPS currently offers but does not make mandatory. An ICAH spokesman said “anything that bucks that trend” toward abstinence-only instruction and forces teachers to receive comprehensive sex education training is “good news.”
posted by Carlos T Mock at 3:47 PM
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