Board rewrites sex ed rule; abstinence-only debate in works

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Board rewrites sex ed rule; abstinence-only debate in works

By John Hanna, The Kansas City Star, March 15, 2006

TOPEKA, Kan. - Having told school districts they must get written permission from parents before enrolling children in sex education classes, the State Board of Education soon will consider requiring abstinence-only courses.

On a 6-4 vote Wednesday, the board added the parental consent mandate to health standards, which are otherwise advisory for school districts. Only a handful of states have similar mandates, according to national groups.

And at the request of Kathy Martin, a Clay Center Republican, the board will discuss requiring districts to have at least one abstinence-only course in grades six through nine.

"We need to send the correct message," Martin said.

Most of Kansas' 300 districts automatically teach children sex education unless a parent objects in writing, an approach favored by many teachers, administrators and public health officials.

But board Chairman Steve Abrams, an Arkansas City Republican, said of the change, "It's about empowering parents; that's the bottom line."

The new mandate doesn't come with any punishment if districts refuse to follow it, prompting critics to predict it will be ignored.

Still, they worry that some children who need information about human sexuality won't get it because their parents will forget to fill out a consent form, or won't see the form.

"Through legal and policy changes, you're not going to create love, and you're not going to create better parent-child communication about sexuality," said Stephen Conley, executive director of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists.

It's not the first time the board went against professional opinions on an issue. In November, the board adopted science testing standards that treat evolution as a flawed theory.

Mark Tallman, a lobbyist for the Kansas Association of School Boards, said boards experienced no problems without a state mandate on sex education.

"We think that's a decision that ought to be made locally," Tallman said.

Wednesday's vote came less than three weeks after the Senate approved a bill requiring all districts to offer comprehensive sex education programs and prohibiting them from going to abstinence-only programs or eliminating sex education altogether. That bill is before a House committee.

The board had a similar regulation in place for nearly two decades, but as it revised rules for accrediting schools, the regulation was allowed to lapse. While the board developed health standards to advise schools, its only requirement is that districts have human sexuality classes of some kind.

In September, the board deadlocked 5-5 over how to handle sex education classes. Martin sided the board's four moderates then, but she said Wednesday the views of her constituents caused her to change her mind.

And, Martin said, she would be comfortable allowing boards to decide how to handle enrollment if courses were abstinence-only.

Only Arizona, Nevada and Utah have a statewide requirement for schools to obtain parental consent for sex education courses, according to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, a group that favors comprehensive programs.

However, it's not uncommon for a local district to have such a policy, said Kathy Christie, senior vice president for the Education Commission of the States.

The Wichita school district, the state's largest with more than 45,000 students, won't enroll middle school or high school students in a sex education course without parental consent.

"A lot of times parents will say, 'No way,' but the more they talk to the teacher ahead of the curriculum, the more they realize it's not what they thought it would be," said district spokeswoman Susan Arensman.

But some public health officials and supporters of comprehensive sex education programs worry that the state board's action was an attack on long-established programs in the name of promoting abstinence.

Under Martin's proposal, a school could lose its state accreditation if it did not offer nine weeks of instruction on "abstinence until marriage" at least once in grades six through nine.

"This would be one way to put a little teeth into what we would like them to do as far as instructing students," Martin said.

Conley said no studies have shown that abstinence-only programs work. Some educators question whether such programs provide students with medically accurate information.

Debra Rukes, the director of the Topeka YWCA's Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, said it encourages abstinence to avoid unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, but also educates teens about birth control.

"Sixty-two percent of them are having sex before they graduate from high school," Rukes said "We recognize that teens are going to make that choice."

Board members Sue Gamble, a Shawnee Republican, and Bill Wagnon, a Topeka Democrat, suggested the board's mandate violates the Kansas Constitution, which says schools "shall be maintained, developed and operated by locally elected boards."

But Tallman said the state board, which has constitutional authority to provide "supervision" of schools, has the power to set accreditation standards.

"I don't know whether the state board could mandate that it be taught, but they could say, 'You're not going to be accredited if you don't,'" Tallman said.

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