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national
Wash. legislators aren’t getting excited about sex ed this year
A half-dozen bills seeking to either enhance or limit sex ed to be debated this year
Published Thursday, 09-Mar-2006 in issue 950
SEATTLE (AP) – School children can learn more about sex from watching TV than from attending health classes in some Washington middle and high schools.
Washington schools are not required to teach sex ed. But in the districts where the topic does come up – between grades 5 and 12 – state law mandates students be taught about abstinence, but teaching about birth control pills or other ways to prevent pregnancy is optional.
And that won’t be changing anytime soon. As in past years, legislators have been trying to change state law on sex ed – some want to add birth control to the curriculum and others would like to restrict the information offered to students – but none of the half-dozen bills proposed this year were expected to make it to the governor’s desk.
The Bellingham School District is a good example of how the current law works. Students are taught about condoms as part of the district’s AIDS education. But that’s the only mention of a birth control method other than abstinence, said Adrienne Nelson, the district’s director of curriculum.
Bellingham uses the state curriculum for sex education, after it passed an approval process with parents, medical professionals and other Bellingham community members.
Nelson didn’t seem enthusiastic about the idea of weaving something new into Bellingham’s version of the state sex ed curriculum, which she called excellent, or about the community meetings that would be required before the new information could be shared in the classroom.
In Seattle, where birth control is part of the sex ed curriculum, students at Ingraham High School couldn’t understand why adults wouldn’t want them to have all the information they need to make informed decisions about sex.
Julian Byrd, 14, said his parents don’t have the information or the right approach to encourage thoughtful behavior about sex.
His teacher, Tamara Brewer, said parents generally were not taught about birth control and sexually transmitted diseases and aren’t as comfortable talking about them as their media-infused children.
Phauy Chey, 14, agreed: “They don’t know how to approach us with it.” Her parents demand she abstain from sex but don’t tell her why.
Even Dekeira Wright, 15, who plans to wait until marriage to have sex, said her devoutly Christian parents couldn’t offer arguments like the photos she saw in Brewer’s class about the impact of sexually transmitted diseases.
“It makes me not even want to kiss anyone,” agreed Kat McCarthy, 15.
Brewer said the reality of what happens in her classes is different than public perception, even though she encourages parents to become better informed.
“People think I’m in here passing out condoms and saying, ‘Go do it.’”
Last year, the state House approved a bill that would have required districts that offer sex ed to teach the subject with medical accuracy. The bill went nowhere in the Senate, so it came up again this year for another try.
The issue doesn’t exactly break along party lines.
Sen. Marilyn Rasmussen, one of two majority Democrats who blocked the bill, said school officials from around her district have urged her not to give them any more statewide rules to follow.
“For me, it’s what I think works best for children and our district,” said Rasmussen, D-Eatonville.
Rep. Toby Nixon, R-Kirkland, sponsor of a bill that would have required written permission from parents before their kids could take a sex education class, believes public schools are the last place children should study this subject.
“I’m one who strongly believes the primary place for instruction in morality and values is the family and church as an extension of the family,” Nixon said.
He said the schools do a great job teaching the facts about biology and anatomy. “But when the schools venture beyond the factual information … there’s a great risk of them contradicting what parents are teaching at home.”
Rep. Rodney Tom, a Republican from suburban Bellevue, has been lobbying on behalf of the change in state law, but he says it hasn’t been easy.
Tom calls sex ed an economic as well as a moral issue because about 12,000 Washington teens become pregnant each year, and the costs of those pregnancies and children often fall on the state.
“I don’t believe that you can continue to say you’re a fiscal conservative if your social policies continue to burden the state with social costs,” Tom said.
Sen. Brian Weinstein, D-Mercer Island, who sponsored the Senate version of the bill, said issues that attract the attention of social conservatives are harder to get through the Legislature than ever.
“The conservatives use some of these issues to rile up their base – gay rights, sex ed – that’s what gets their voters to the polls,” he said. “That’s what gets their base excited. They get excited about things having to do with sex.”
Amy Luftig, the lobbyist for Planned Parenthood Network of Washington, pointed out that some of the senators who oppose the bill represent districts with high rates of unintended pregnancies. Her organization has found that 85 percent of Washington state parents support comprehensive sex education.
“Both Republicans and Democrats understand that young people need information about remaining abstinent and protecting themselves when they do become sexually active,” Luftig said. 
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