A majority of parents at a community forum last week spoke out in favor of adding discussion of sex and contraception to the curriculum at the junior high school.
School teachers and administrators will take the comments made at the forum into account as they draft the curriculum, which is expected to come back to the School Committee for approval in the spring.
The forum attracted about 50 people to Westbrook High School. The meeting began quietly but ended with the police being called to remove one of the speakers from the school.
School Committee member Tim Crellin called the police after George Rodrigues, a parent of a middle school student, made accusations about the beliefs of one of the district’s teachers.
Rodrigues was escorted out of the Westbrook High cafeteria and only allowed to return when the meeting was nearly over. Two Westbrook police officers arrived as the meeting was finishing.
“A public forum is never the place for that,” said Assistant Superintendent Jan Breton. “We have to legally protect our employees. They can’t be slammed in public.” She said all school employees have to pass a background check, and the employee in question was clean.
The forum was called to allow parents a chance to talk about whether Westbrook should teach kids in junior high a more comprehensive sexuality curriculum than the abstinence-only curriculum in place now.
After an introduction by Assistant Superintendent Jan Breton, School Health Coordinator Sandy Hale told the attendees that Westbrook’s teen pregnancy rate is rising while neighboring communities are falling. Hale said, according to state data, Westbrook is the only community in the area other than South Portland to have more teen pregnancy today than in 1993.
Hale said teaching kids about prevention through use of contraceptives in addition to abstinence in junior high provides a better way to reduce teenage pregnancy. She also said Wescott Junior High had a similar curriculum in place in the early 1990s that was removed for a reason she didn’t know. She also stressed that any parent would be able to opt their child out of any part of the sex education program and at any time during the program.
As health coordinator, Hale will help develop the curriculum for the junior high along with two junior high health teachers and most likely one high school health teacher, according to Breton. The assistant superintendent expects the curriculum to be written in the spring, when it will go on to the school committee.
After Hale spoke last Tuesday, Breton opened up the microphone to anyone who would like to speak. Most parents spoke in favor of reinstating a curriculum that included
A number of parents and school officials spoke in favor of reinstating a combined curriculum to the junior high, and a handful spoke against.
Westbrook High School Nurse Pat Donovan said Westbrook needed to start teaching sex education sooner because junior high students want to know about the changes occurring in their bodies at that time. She also said that without teaching a comprehensive curriculum some students will get the information they need from their parents, while others will get it from the street.
“Everyone needs to get the same information so that not (just) a little pocket of students have the information,” she said. “And I think people are getting the wrong information on the streets.”
Crellin stressed that, while junior high students may be children, they are sexually active and becoming parents. “Not providing them with healthy information, providing for logical choices, is not going to make the problem go away,” he said. “Sitting here casting aspersions on opposing groups is not going to do that, either.”
Kris Torry, parent of a fifth-grader at the Congin School, said she came to the meeting because she was concerned about her child being taught sex education in junior high. “I am feeling much more comfortable about the whole process,” she said, knowing “that you are going to be stressing abstinence and the fact that we can opt out of it.”
Rodrigues spoke out against teaching about contraceptives in junior high and said there was an agenda in the school department to do so. “What we’re getting tonight is not the whole picture,” he said. “We’re being sung to sleep.” Rodrigues said teaching sex education in junior high is setting kids up for the expectation that they will have sex.
“What I see happening is a sexual permissiveness in the high school,” he said. “I don’t know why the school doesn’t enforce a (public display of affection) policy,” but he was told “that the reason that doesn’t happen is that they’re concerned about retribution if they say something about a homosexual couple in the hallways here.”
Rodrigues then started talking about a teacher in Westbrook who held beliefs Rodrigues believed to be innapropriate for a teacher. He claimed the teacher was a follower of Wilhelm Reich, who espoused “sexual liberation,” according to Rodrigues.
Crellin and Breton objected immediately to bringing the teacher up as a part of the discussion. “We’re not going to do that,” said Breton.
Rodrigues continued to speak but was soon escorted away from the microphone by Crellin and others. At the back of the room, Rodrigues’ son, Joseph, yelled, “Let the truth out!” Rodrigues was escorted out of the cafeteria, while Crellin made a call on his cell phone to the Westbrook police department.
Westbrook School Health Coordinator Sandra Hale speaks at a public hearing about changes to the school’s sexual education curriculum last week.
Westbrook resident George Rodrigues speaks at the public hearing regarding changes to the schools’ sexual education curriculum last week. Rodrigues was later escorted from the meeting for making accusations against a Westbrook teacher.
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