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