Wednesday, December 6, 2017 // The Statement 
7B

and Relationship Education program, 
teaches in 51 school districts in Oakland 
County.

SHARE Director Evelyn Van Sloten said 

her organization offers middle school, high 
school and in some cases an elementary 
school program.

“The program is a sexual risk avoidance 

program so that is the emphasis, which 
is for optimal sexual health, is the way 
to have the proper mindset in order to 
encourage young people to make the 
healthiest choices,” Van Sloten said.

The 
program 
facilitators 
discuss 

things 
like 
HIV/STD 
transmission, 

contraceptives and sexual assault.

Typically, the programs supplement 

in-class instruction. According to Van 
Sloten, SHARE must first meet with 
health 
teachers, 
then 
the 
districts’ 

health advisory committee and then the 
school board, which has the final say 
over whether it is able to participate in 
classroom instruction.

While the program’s website shows 

that after students go through it they are 
more likely to say it is more important to 
them to wait until marriage to have sex, 
Van Sloten said the SHARE program 
differs from other programs in that the 
instructors are certified by a sexual risk-
avoidance program, which takes a more 
holistic approach to sex education.

“The typical abstinence program would 

be one that would basically highlight what 
the issues are and basically it’s a just a 
‘say no’ program, which is actually the 
healthiest choice, but an SRA program, 
it comes out of a national organization 
called Ascend, and that is a program 
where our instructors are certified,” Van 
Sloten said. “It’s an understanding of all 
of the components that make a person up, 
whether it’s their physical, their social or 
environmental or relationship aspects.”

In September 2017, Forest Hills School 

District in Grand Rapids decided to end its 
abstinence-only curriculum and to begin 
allowing certified Forest Hills teachers to 
teach sex education. Local parents told the 
local Fox affiliate they felt the abstinence-
only program was unrealistic and lacking.

For 15 years, the Pregnancy Resource 

Center taught and developed the curriculum 
for sex education classes in Grand Rapids. 
Despite many blaming the Pregnancy 
Resource Center, the president of the group, 
Jim Sprague, told Fox 17 West Michigan it 
was only following district rules.

“It was Forest Hills solely who asked 

us not to teach from the abstinence-based 
plan,” Sprague said. “We couldn’t even utter 
the word ‘condom’ in the classrooms. That 
is what we were instructed to do for the last 
15 years.”

*****
In the wake of many recent celebrity 

sexual assault allegations, and the rise of the 
online #MeToo solidarity movement, many 
believe it is time to begin addressing these 
problems early on with students.

One such Michigan resident, Wendy 

Sellers, a registered nurse who helped 
author a recent report on the state of health 
education in Michigan, told Michigan Radio 
in October that she views sex education as 
crucial to preventing sexual assault.

“We need to start young because these 

types of behaviors begin at a young age and 
continue into adulthood,” Sellers said. “And 
so, one of the answers to these issues is 
educating young people about what healthy 
relationships look like and how to develop 
the skills to have healthy relationships, as 
well as what to do to intervene if a person 
is the object of sexual harassment or sexual 
assault.”

At the policy level, legislators have 

sought to amend parts of the sex education 
curriculum, specifically redefining how 
sexual assault is covered and the requirement 
of medically accurate information. Last 
month, state Sen. Curtis Hertel, Jr., D-East 
Lansing, proposed what he called “yes 
means yes” legislation. The law would shift 
the sex education curriculum to include 
conversations about defining affirmative 
consent. State Sen. Hoon-Yung Hopgood, 
D-Taylor, proposed a bill that would require 
schools that teach sex education to teach 
medically accurate information.

“Research continues to show that 

comprehensive 
sex 
education, 
which 

teaches both abstinence and contraception, 
is most effective for young people,” Hopgood 
wrote in a press release. “Youth who receive 
this kind of education are more likely to 
initiate sexual activity later in life and use 
protection correctly and consistently when 
they do become sexually active.”

The new legislation will cast equal 

responsibility on men in preventing sexual 
assault, Hertel said.

“For example, my daughter will be taught 

her entire life, how not to dress, to walk in lit 
places, not to put down her drink and leave 
it unattended; she’ll be taught to carry Mace 
or pepper spray, but the boys in her class will 
never be taught not to be perpetrators.”

Kaplowitz, also a member of the Sex 

Education Advisory Board in his school 
district, wrote that abstinence isn’t effective 
in creating sexually healthy students.

“Districts and states where abstinence 

is centered end up with students having 
sex at no lower a rate, but due to a lack 
of information about contraception and 
safer sex, rates of pregnancy and STI are 
significantly higher,” Kaplowitz wrote. “Of 
course abstinence is the only 100% effective 
method, but the real result of mandating 
this be the core of our sex ed curriculum is 
not abstinent students, but uninformed, and 
therefore less safe students.”

Yet currently, the state continues to put the 

majority of sex ed decision-making power 
on local authorities, which contributes to 
often confusing and retrograde lessons in 
the classroom.

“We have a responsibility to teach 

people to have basic respect for each other 
and their bodies,” Hertel said. “I think 
this is a cultural shift that needs to happen 
and I think this bill helps us get there.”
ALEXIS RANKIN/DAILY

