Lowell middle schools stick with teaching abstinence
Officials cite funds as a major reason
LOWELL - The Lowell middle schools use sex education courses that promote abstinence from sex before marriage and steer clear of information about sexuality, contraception, and sexually transmitted disease.
Critics say the schools should switch to comprehensive sex education, to teach students who choose to have sex how to protect themselves from pregnancy and disease.
But school officials say they do not have the money: While state backing for the abstinence-only program lapsed this year, the schools will continue to use them next year, since they are offered for free under a federal grant, the officials said.
"Right now we're trying to prioritize," Mayor Edward "Bud" Caulfield said recently, after the School Committee voted last month to cut 10 teachers to help erase a $3 million budget deficit. "We're operating on a shoestring."
Caulfield, who also is chairman of the School Committee, said he believes in comprehensive sex education. "I can't see anything wrong with trying to educate the students about the perils of getting pregnant," he said.
Anita M. Downs, who stepped down recently as Lowell City-Wide Parent Council chairwoman and remains on the board, feels the same way and said she believes the schools should restore comprehensive sex education, which was dropped for budgetary reasons in 2003.
Downs acknowledged money is scarce, but said the district should create partnerships with outside organizations that might provide comprehensive sex education for free. "It is very important, because it's going to affect our future in a lot of ways," she said.
Lowell had the ninth-highest rate of teen pregnancy and births in the state in 2006, according to the latest data from the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy, an advocacy organization working to prevent teenage pregnancy and help pregnant and parenting teens and their children.
Proponents say abstinence-only sex education helps students make sound choices about their lives, and refrain from sex before marriage. But critics say the just-say-no approach doesn't work, and leaves students ignorant and vulnerable to early pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
Claire H. Golas, who oversees the just-say-no program in Lowell, said neither teachers nor parents have registered formal complaints about the abstinence teaching. She described the program, called Healthy Futures, as "effective, because it's hands-on, down to the kids' level. It's empowering the children to make their own choices."
The program started under former governor Mitt Romney, who used federal grants to the state to fund just-say-no initiatives to set up free workshops in schools. Healthy Futures also received a separate stream of money directly from the federal government.
Last year, Governor Deval Patrick decided to stop accepting the money from Washington, but Healthy Futures survived this year on its direct federal grant.
Healthy Futures director Rebecca M. Ray said her organization, based in Dorchester, receives $600,000 yearly directly from the federal government to provide free workshops in 10 to 12 Eastern Massachusetts school districts, including Lowell, but no longer gets $500,000 in funds formerly distributed by the state. The state pass-through grant would have been used to expand her program, she said.
"We have very strong support from school districts," Ray said. "They'd like to see us increasing the number of students we work with."
Rhea Gordon, who teaches the abstinence-only workshops, said she works with the Lowell Mission Church, a subcontractor of Healthy Futures that receives $156,000 to mount five one-hour workshops per year at each middle school. She said the program's motto, "The choices you make now will affect you later," can be applied to decisions about joining gangs, using alcohol and drugs, and becoming sexually active.
The workshops, said Gordon, address pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases but stress the best way to avoid them is to abstain from sex. She said she teaches that condoms are not 100-percent effective in preventing pregnancy or disease.
A spokesman for Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, which opposes the Healthy Futures approach, called it "dangerously unrealistic" to teach students that condoms don't work.
"What these programs fail to do - and are prohibited from doing under federal regulation - is to convey to young people that condoms are an extremely effective method of preventing unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections," said the spokesman, Angus McQuilken.
McQuilken said he hopes state lawmakers will fund comprehensive sex education, so that communities like Lowell can afford it.
"Access to comprehensive sex education right now is an accident of geography," he said. "If you live in a school district that has resources and makes it a priority, you have access to it. If you live in a school district that doesn't, you don't."
Massachusetts Department of Public Health spokeswoman Donna Rheaume said the state "does not have the funding to provide every school district with grants to engage in comprehensive health education," but local systems could make it a priority, and the federal government should provide money for it.
Lowell switched from comprehensive sex education taught by health teachers in 2003, after budget problems forced schools to cut 14 of 17 of the teachers, said Lowell deputy superintendent for curriculum Jean Franco.
Healthy Futures approached school officials and offered the workshops for free, Franco said. The workshops are now given to about 800 sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders, she said.
Neighboring Lawrence also has abstinence-only sex education, both in middle and high schools, taught by classroom teachers.
Lawrence Deputy Superintendent Mary Lou Bergeron said the schools there chose the approach at the urging of the city's large religious evangelical community.
Lawrence also ranked high in teen pregnancies and births in 2006, with the third-highest rate in the state, after Holyoke and Springfield, according to the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy.
Connie Paige can be reached at cpaige@globe.com. 