The Westbrook School Department is considering adding contraception education to the curriculum at the middle school.
The School Committee agreed to hold a public hearing on the addition – which has yet to be scheduled – after being lobbied by a Westbrook father with three children in the schools.
“I think there’s no one here who would think it’s a good idea for junior high school kids to be having sex,” Rodrigues, of Carlson Street, said at the School Committe meeting last week. “The present curriculum doesn’t address contraception at a junior high school level. This curriculum puts a high emphasis on it.”
Westbrook School Health Coordinator Sandy Hale said the curriculum is currently being revised as part of a regular five-year cycle of curriculum revisions. The schools formed a committee to look specifically at the human sexuality portion of the curriculum. It included teachers, administrators and parents, including Rodrigues.
After meeting three times from March through May, the group came up with a list that included contraception education at both the junior high and high school levels, a decision that has proven controversial. The new curriculum has not been written, and Hale said all that has been presented to the public is a list of possible topics, which were ranked by the committee in order of importance.
While contraception appears on both the list for the junior high and high schools, at the junior high school level, contraception was ranked below abstinence education. The high school’s list does rank contraception above abstinence education.
Rodrigues said he would prefer that schools stay away from the discussion of contraception completely, but he thinks it is a particularly inappropriate discussion for kids in the seventh and eighth grades.
Hale said, if contraception were added to the curriculum, it wouldn’t be the first time it was taught at the junior high school in Westbrook. She said in the early 1990s contraception was included as part of the health curriculum at the junior high school.
“It’s reinstating a piece of instruction that used to be there,” she said.
She said previously the junior high school presented information on contraceptives, but did not teach students how to use it. Additionally, parents were notified when the topic was being discussed in class and information was sent home, and families were encouraged to discuss the topic together.
“I think that’s a good approach, we should do that again,” she said. Hale added that it is unlikely contraception would be discussed with seventh-graders. That topic would be reserved for the older eighth-grade students.
Julie Baker of Gray Street has two kids in Westbrook schools. She said while she would rather see kids hold off from having sex, that isn’t always realistic and she would rather let kids know what options are available to them.
“I would like to point out that just because we don’t want kids to have sex doesn’t mean they’re not going to,” she said. “I don’t think it benefits anyone to stick our heads in the sand and pretend they’re not doing this.”
Westbrook High School senior Michael Foley, who serves as a student representative to the School Committee and was elected to the City Council last week, said he thought the present health curriculum presents a “bare bones” approach to sex education, and a new curriculum would help kids make more informed choices.
“It’s more to protect the kids,” he said.
Foley said he doesn’t think teaching contraception in the schools would lead to major problems. “I think it’s just a lot of people overreacting,” he said.
Westbrook High School Nurse Pat Donovan, said while a discussion of contraception is appropriate to inform the kids, the schools would still be stressing that kids should not be having sex. “Abstinence is what we want,” she said. “But they need to know that there is something out there.”
Foley also agrees that kids should be holding off from having sex, especially at the junior high school level. “It’s horrendous to think people that young are doing stuff like that,” he said. But still, Foley thinks if kids are going to have sex, it’s better that they know how they can protect themselves from disease and pregnancy. “I think more education would be better,” he said.
At a meeting of the School Committee last week, Rodrigues pushed the committee to hold a public hearing to allow a wide range of parents to comment on the proposal before the curriculum is written. He said he felt the working group that came up with the topics represented a relatively small set of parents and he wanted the committee to hear from a wider range of parents before settling on a final curriculum.
“I think there’s significant interest in abstinence education, and I think that voice should be heard,” he said. “The recommendation for contraception education at the junior high school probably does not enjoy high support.”
After hearing Rodrigues’ request, School Committee Chairwoman Colleen Hilton said she felt there was sufficient interest in the matter for the committee to hold a public hearing. A date for the meeting has not been set.
Hale said she welcomed the chance to hear from more members of the community, and she said while she supports teaching contraception, she does agree that abstinence is the best answer for all kids. “The best choice for school children is to delay sexual activity,” Hale said. “I think that’s the best choice.”
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