by Rachel Gross

As teen sexual activity increases and condom use falls, the region’s largest high school continues to stick to its “abstinence-plus” sex education program, blaming Harrisburg for the limitations on its curriculum.

District officials told Voices they update the curriculum annually based on the latest research, but also admit that there hasn’t been a comprehensive local review since one was federally-mandated in 1986 as the AIDS crisis was emerging.

“We follow very closely what the community agreed to at that time,” explained Pam Francis, supervisor of planning program development and evaluation for the district.

In the 22 years since that review, myths about HIV/AIDS have been debunked by research, contraceptive options have changed, violence and intimidation have shut down health clinics offering abortions and teens have daily access to the Internet which offers a wide-ranging and heavy-hitting array of media messages about sex.

The steady and significant decline of sexual activity among teens in the 1990s has leveled off since 2001 nationally according to the Centers for Disease Control. The halt in this downward trend, which coincides with intensified government spending on abstinence programs, has many experts worried that sexual activity among teens will rise again, essentially undoing the progress of the 90s, according to a 2007 article in the Washington Post.

Meanwhile, the sex education guidelines offered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, last updated in 2002, come to a sum total of fewer than 60 words of a 19-page document. Department spokeswoman Leah Harris pointed out the section on “health problems” as the only one relevant to sex education.

But a Voices review of the state guidelines found two areas where sex education can be provided to students if the local curriculum committee and school board permit it.

The sixth grade guidelines tells instructors to “Identify health problems that can occur throughout life and describe ways to prevent them,” and these include “diseases (e.g., cancer, diabetes, STD/HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular disease)” and “preventions (i.e. do not smoke, maintain proper weight, eat a balanced diet, practice sexual abstinence, be physically active).”

The ninth grade curriculum calls for students to “Analyze factors that impact growth and development between adolescence and adulthood,” and are enumerated as “relationships (e.g., dating, friendships, peer pressure), interpersonal communication, risk factors (e.g., physical inactivity, substance abuse, intentional/unintentional injuries, dietary patterns), abstinence, STD and HIV prevention, community.”

While abstinence and sexually transmitted diseases get two mentions, nowhere can the words “contraception,” “sex,” “intercourse,” “pregnancy” or “abortion” be found. While the authors of these statewide standards are willing to protect young people from HIV/AIDS contracted through sexual intercourse, they are silent on other consequences of the same act.

Local control

Yet school districts across the state have found plenty of room within those guidelines to teach teens more than abstinence and the protection condoms provide from HIV transmission, the defining elements of abstinence-plus.

Council Rock High School South, part of a district in eastern Pennsylvania, uses an entirely comprehensive approach. Health teacher Pat Toner said that their curriculum covers every facet of contraception, including the latest developments such as the Nuva ring.

Senior students take part in a lab where 60 different types of condoms are examined to determine if they meet government standards for prevention of HIV and pregnancy.

“The students actually look at and touch them,” said Toner.

Rural districts may face different challenges though, and State College with its mix of town and gown presents an even greater challenge.

“We have a very conservative population,” said Margie Swoboda, head of the health and physical education department at State College High. She said it is tricky to design a sex-education program that pleases everyone.

Francis agreed.

“This is an area of instruction of great sensitivity,” she said. “We do our best to honor and respect the diverse opinions in our community.”

But honoring diversity in this case means never mentioning medical procedures such as abortion or D & Cs, for example, in the classroom.

“We ask families to talk to students how they choose to in respect to these issues,” Francis explained.

State College High’s abstinence-plus curriculum dedicates just two and a half days out of the 24 spent on sex education to contraception. The majority of the time is spent on feelings, relationships and good decision-making, explained Swoboda.

“We talk a lot about maturity and big decisions,” she said. “We always stress that the best way to stay protected is to abstain completely.”

Curriculum advisory officials confirm that teachers are trained to enforce abstinence as the number one message.

Touching condoms in class isn’t likely to happen at State College High any time soon.

Sylvia Ranjeva, who recently graduated from State High, was a member of the student group CAUSE (Creating Awareness Using Student Education), an organization that wanted to hand out condoms with AIDS information on them during Aids Awareness Month. The administration wouldn’t allow it or the group’s subsequent attempt to distribute condom-shaped lollipops, Ranjeva said.

Is abstinence education working?

Advocates of abstinence-based education, including Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, argue that it reduces the incidences of sexually transmitted disease and pregnancy in teens and that teaching about contraception implicitly gives teens permission to have sex. Instead, they promote programs that limit such information and go so far as to encourage young people to pledge virginity until marriage.

But does telling teens to abstain actually work?

Not according to teens. The CDC’s 2007 survey of 14,000 high school students nationwide reported that almost half (48 percent) of all high school teens report they have had sex. Thirty-five percent said they had sex in the last three months, 15 percent said they had four or more sexual partners and 7 percent reported having sex before age 13. All percentages increased between 2005 and 2007.

Then there’s the 2008 study of 2,000 teens published by the Association for Public Policy and Management measuring the effectiveness of abstinence-only programs. The findings showed no significant impact on teen sexual activity and no differences in rates of unprotected sex.

What about the teens who pledge to remain virgins until marriage? They have the same sexually-transmitted disease rates as other teens, according to a study by Peter Bearman, chair of the Sociology Department at Columbia University. Additionally, 88 percent of virginity pledgers have sex before marriage, but they are one-third less likely to use condoms the first time they have sex.

Tough spot for educators …and students

One State College High health class assignment involves students talking to their parents about having become pregnant, explained Ayshe Yeager, who recently took 9th grade health. The discussion questions involved who would care for the baby, whether the new mother could still go to college and other questions that assumed the pregnancy would come to full term.

“I asked my health teacher the next day why he didn’t talk about abortion,” Yeager told Voices. “And he said he wasn’t allowed to talk about abortion to the whole class.”

Swoboda said teachers are specifically told not to entertain questions that fall outside of the curriculum, implying that this included questions about abortion. Students are directed first to their parents, then to a guidance counselor and then to outside agencies if necessary, she said.

Teens themselves say it is unlikely they will walk up to a teacher and announce that they are sexually active or pregnant and in need of more information.

Ranjeva, the recent State High graduate, took her health course by correspondence, a popular option at State High. She said her only sex-related assignment was an essay in which she had to explain and describe three benefits of abstinence as a method of contraception.

“For a curriculum that is supposedly abstinence-plus, this seems so short-sighted,” said Ranjeva.

What’s missing and why does it matter?

With a parent-teen generation-gap of approximately 20 years, during which time HIV-AIDS, HPV and Hepatitis C have entered the sexually-active population in force, parents can be ill-equipped to talk to their teens about the threats of unprotected sex.

“I think in this day and age, it is imperative that schools teach sex education, including information about protection and birth control,” Lori Thompson, mother of a State High girl, said.

“Programs that focus on abstinence until marriage cause teens to focus on the alleged failure rates and ineffectiveness of condoms,” said Deb Fulham-Winston, vice president for public affairs and communications for Planned Parenthood of North East and Mid Pennsylvania. As a result, they are less likely to use protection whenever they do become sexually active, she said.

The most recent national research seems to support this assertion. The CDC’s 2007 teen survey showed that the number of high school teens who report being sexually active has increased by 2 percent in the last two years. During the same time period, teens who said they used a condom the last time they had sex decreased 2 percent.

This seems obvious to local teens.

“It is an unarguable reality that teens are having sex,” said Ranjeva. “The [SCASD] administration needs to put its foot down; it’s time to stop teaching ideals and start addressing the issue.”

A Woman’s Concern in class

Yet State College High brings in outside speakers to help deliver their message of abstinence. Carol Phillips, a representative from A Woman’s Concern, an organization that bills itself a local pregnancy resource clinic, confirmed that her group is invited to State College High health classes every year. Phillips said that A Woman’s Concern’s primary mission is reducing the number of abortions, followed closely by representing Jesus Christ.

Nathaniel Stump, a clinic representative and former youth pastor, presents to students interactive skits to show the realities of facing an unplanned pregnancy, Phillips said. He asks the boys to envision having to tell a girl’s father that he got his daughter pregnant.

When asked about the separation of church and state, Phillips said the United States is a nation founded on Christian principles.

“The Lord’s prayer along with Christian values make for a more stable community,” Phillips said.

Rick Madore, president of the State College Area School District School Board, said he believes that it is the information being given that is most important, not the person from which it comes.

“Personally, I wouldn’t have a problem with somebody coming in who is a pastor,” Madore said. “That’s just like anybody else making a presentation.”

The rest of the story

But State College High is only giving students one perspective and half of the story, said Anne Ard, director of the Centre County Women’s Resource Center in State College.

“There are some clear links between healthy relationships and education,” said Ard. “Knowledge about all facets of a relationship is essential to avoidance of pitfalls like sexual assault and domestic violence.” Accurate information about contraception should be part of any curriculum about healthy relationships, Ard said.

Joanne Tosti-Vasey, president of the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Organization for Women, agreed, saying A Woman’s Concern provides false advertising and lures women in for its religious purposes.

“Young women come in expecting to get full-choice counseling for an unexpected pregnancy and instead get a religious spiel, a basic pregnancy test that can be purchased over the counter and a steerage away from abortions,” said Tosti-Vasey. The National Organization for Women advocates for women’s rights and reproductive freedom.

Planned Parenthood also offers educational programs for students, but the State College Area School District has not invited them in recent years.

Why not?

“Our curriculum is jam-packed,” State College High’s Swoboda explained.

As for the separation of church and state, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the federal government in May 2005 for funding an abstinence group called “The Silver Ring Thing.” The ACLU accused the government of funding what amounts to a missionary group, whose main goal is to convert teens to Christianity.

Funding was pulled in August 2005, when the program was found in violation of the separation between church and state.

Voices General Manager Suzan Erem contributed to this story.