It began with a career day presentation by a student at Starkville High School, soon became an online petition to demand the teacher of that class be returned to the classroom and today is the subject of an investigation by the Starkvile-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District.
Almost all that we know of Thursday’s incident comes from the online petition — school district officials, citing privacy policies, have said an investigation is currently under way, but little else.
According to the petition, an Honors English teacher was removed from classroom after a student gave a presentation on safe sex. The student was giving a “career talk,” a class assignment, on her goal to become a sexologist.
The petition states there were no graphic images or language used in the presentation, although the student did use a cucumber and a condom in a demonstration on the proper use of condoms.
It figures to be an interesting investigation.
While state policy on sexual education in classrooms has rules about how the subject is taught, it is unclear how those rules apply in this case, since the incident was not part of the district’s sexual education program.
In Mississippi, school districts have two sexual education programs from which to choose — Abstinence Only (which excludes any information on contraception) and Abstinence Plus (which allows a limited amount of information to be provided to students on safe sex practices, contraception and possible consequences of sexual activity)
Starkville’s schools opted for Abstinence Plus, but even under that program, there are rules that limit how it is taught.
Students are separated by gender and parents are to be provided an opportunity to have their children opt out of that instruction.
So, while parents are not allowed to opt out of vaccinations that prevent many illness, they can opt out of instruction that might prevent sexually transmitted diseases or unwanted pregnancies. This is supposed to make sense, somehow.
Statewide, 80 of the state’s 150 school districts have chosen an Abstinence Only program.
For reasons that we find difficult to grasp, there are many in Mississippi — and in our Legislature — who view this subject as a moral issue rather than a public health issue.
That is not only wrong-headed, it has terrible consequences. Mississippi is third in teen pregnancy and second in sexually transmitted disease. Our state ranks first in both Chlamydia and Gonorrhea.
Our schools’ resistance to fully equip students with vital information and tools needed to combat this public health crisis costs our state millions of dollars is medical care, foster care and support services.
It also represents an even greater human toll.
Teen pregnancy, especially, limits the potential of scores of our teens, for whom pregnancy and parenthood is a sure path to perpetual poverty and the many negative consequences that accompany it.
In advocating for a more thorough, more honest approach to sexual education, we do not seek to intrude on parents’ rights to discuss sex as a moral issue.
But it cannot, should not, be viewed only in that context; they need not be mutually exclusive.
In an earlier generation, the cry was “Good Girls Don’t” which, while not only sending a patently objectionable message that boys bear no responsibility, has proven to be about as effective as “Just Say No.”
It is a curious thing. Many Mississippians have no objection to students being exposed to graphic images of car crashes used to drive home the dangers of texting/drinking and driving or horrid images associated with drug addiction.
Yet somehow, showing a teen-ager a condom is a road marker on the road to ruin.
Such an approach is illogical and irresponsible.
And it must change.
The costs are simply too high.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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