Mike Silvestri, The Examiner
2008-03-06 08:00:00.0
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BALTIMORE -

Carroll’s abstinence-based sex education is outdated and unrealistic, students and parents say.

The policy came under renewed criticism when officials blocked lessons about condoms in an HIV-prevention program that the county’s health department recommended for Gateway School, which enrolls troubled students in sixth through 12th grade.

“I think that there should be an HIV-prevention type thing because the reality is not everybody does abstinence these days,” said Kim Horton, who attended Gateway last year and now takes computer classes.

“A lot of kids don’t even consider it.”

Officials said Gateway students’ “risky behavior” with drugs or sex puts them at a greater risk for contracting HIV.

About 12 percent of Gateway students last year reported being pregnant or fathering a child, said Principal Bob Cullison.

But the school board questioned three sections of nine in the proposed curriculum because they dealt with condom use and would need to be modified to meet the county’s abstinence-based policy.

So Superintendent Charles Ecker and curriculum officials ruled against the program, said Steve Johnson, the county’s assistant superintendent for curriculum.

Johnson said officials would consider looking for another HIV-prevention program that would meet the county’s sex-ed policy.

Kelley McIver was 17 when she had her first child and said parents should talk more to their children about safe sex.

“It’s so touchy a subject because you try to stress abstinence, but that’s not the real world,” said McIver, who has children 21, 11 and 3 years old.

“We’d like to live in a utopia, but you’ve got to live in the real world.”

msilvestri@baltimoreexaminer.com