Dipping My Toes Into Hot Water

In about a week I am giving a coffee for a woman I know who is running for reelection to the school committee.

School committee is a totally thankless job. Totally. Thankless. Especially with the people in town who consider every cent spent toward education a personal conspiracy to rob them of their money. While enthusiastically supporting other less than necessary town programs.

(For example, there’s a move afoot (well-supported) to replace several town playing fields with artificial turf to the tune of a LOT of money. Our schools can’t get enough funding to maintain level services and there’s support for building artificial turf fields? This makes no friggin’ sense.)

One of my acquaintance’s opponents for this election is a woman who simply cannot let go of issues. One of her big issues as she goes into this campaign is to implement abstinence-only health education in the schools. That’s abstinence-ONLY. And this approach, in this day and age, just floors me.

Currently our schools offer a health program that teaches abstinence-first, and parents are given enough advance warning that they can have their children removed from the classes if they so choose. Years of post-class surveys show that the kids in our schools leave knowing that abstinence is the ONLY sure way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. But they also know how to better protect themselves if they choose to take a different path – and that it is “better” protection, not “100%” protection. We have a very low rate of sexually transmitted disease and I believe the last (reported) case of teen pregnancy is now a 1st grader (a friend of M’s).

I try my hardest as a parent, and I like to believe that my children will make certain choices and always come to me for advice. But, I am under no delusions that I am a perfect parent – and I remember being a teenager. No way was I going to ask my mom about, um, stuff. By this time, I already knew where my mother and father stood on certain issues; their values were well-taught. But I was becoming my own person, wanting and needing to make my own choices. I needed and sought-out other sources of information. I am fortunate that I had the wherewithal to do that.

My kids – and others – need another source for information. They do. As I mentioned, parents can opt their kids out of the classes, so why does this woman feel the need to try to deny this education to ALL the kids in town? I simply don’t know.

There’s a documentary out that I saw a while back, The Education of Shelby Knox, about just this issue. It’s fascinating. A young woman in Lubbock, Texas, herself a Christian who has pledged abstinence until marriage, learns that her town – with abstinence ONLY education in the schools – has the highest incidence of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases in the state and begins a campaign to bring more comprehensive health education to the schools. I recommend the film. It’s thought-provoking.

The issue theoretically was settled in school committee a couple of years ago, with the majority of the school committee (after MONTHS of research and meetings) voting to maintain the current health curriculum. But this woman wants to bring it up again. Which begs the question – is she running to represent the community or only her own agenda?

(She also wants to remove all world language instruction at the lower elementary levels – it’s a small portion of the lower elementary curriculum, but loved by the kids, and the kids are coming into their formal language curriculum in middle school better prepared.)

My acquaintance who is running has been really conscientious about her role on the school committee in the last three years. She ran – successfully – without much family support beyond her husband and kids (she has in-laws in town who specifically did not support her first run, but that is a whole ‘nother can of worms – and she’s proven them wrong), and has dedicated herself to being available to residents of the town. I’ve seen her in the library numerous times, checking out stacks of materials on specific topics so that she can be better prepared for meetings and discussions. It’s really been quite impressive.

So if I can do just a little something for her, I want to. The invitations go out tomorrow (37 of them!). I hope for a good turnout so we can mobilize to get my acquaintance back in office. She’s doing a good job.