Perris needs more sex ed

By: RICK MACHADO | Wednesday, November 2, 2005 7:48 PM PST ∞

In a recent interview with The Californian, John Denver, trustee of the Perris Union High School District, said that he has helped change the current "opt-out" program for sex education to an "opt-in" program.

In his district, all HIV-AIDS and sex-ed classes are taught as part of the health curriculum. Up until this year, when the unit on HIV-AIDS and sex comes up, if the parents object, they can request that their child opt out of that lesson.

Now it's been changed. Now, all students must get their parents' permission first, before they attend the class. They must "opt in." Denver says he's "in favor of what the parents want. We don't want to slip anything by."

The Grossmont school board in San Diego County recently voted the opt-in policy down. The Westminster school board in Orange County is in a fight to see if it's even legal to opt in. Even the right-wing Kansas state school board couldn't get a majority of people to go with "opt in."

Most reasonable people see that requiring parental permission to receive sex-ed and HIV-AIDS information would put many students at risk for missing the class altogether. Ninety-one percent of parents nationally want sex education taught in the schools. Why would you need their permission a second time? And who, or what, is "slipping by"?

On the surface, it appears Mr. Denver is being vigilant ---- protecting parental rights, keeping a careful eye on the kids, that sort of thing. But he's not being vigilant. He's being ignorant.

According to the latest statistics, the United States has a teen birth rate of 43 per 1,000 for girls ages 15 to 19. California's rate is 41 per 1,000. Both of these are shocking enough, considering Canada has a rate of only 25 teen births per 1,000. France has only 8 per 1,000.

The fact that the United States has the highest rate of teen births among all industrialized countries should compel parents everywhere to make sex ed an everyday class.

Perris beats them all. The latest statistics we could find show that Perris has a birth rate for girls 15-19 of 156 per 1,000 births. This is almost four times higher than our national rate. It's higher than the highest country in Europe (Bulgaria at 57 per 1,000), higher than El Salvador (92), higher than Bangladesh (115), higher than Zambia (132), higher than The Congo (136), and higher than Nigeria (138). In fact, you'd have to go all the way to Ethiopia to find a higher rate, at a sad 168 teen births per 1,000.

With statistics like this, sex ed in Perris should be taught as many times as spelling lessons. Is this what the parents want?

That a school board trustee would worry that a student receiving sex ed in a city that has such a high pregnancy rate is "slipping by," and the same trustee would push for and implement an opt-in policy, ensuring almost certainly that fewer students would take the class, is so shamefully cruel that I am almost speechless.

It's time to replace Mr. Denver with someone who understands that ignorance is what schools overcome. They don't encourage it.

Rick Machado lives in Sun City.