Healthy Kids and Sex Ed: A Guest Post from Susan Fisher

(Scrutiny Hooligans is honored to host a post from our Democratic Representative for NC House District 114, Susan Fisher. You can learn more about Susan at her website. While you’re connecting with her, click here for her Facebook page and here for her Twitter page.

We’re grateful to have our legislators participate here at ScruHoo, and I hope you’ll drop a comment to let Susan know that you’re grateful too.)

As families across the state get ready for the 2010-2011 school year, probably one of the last things on their mind is sex education.

But if we want our children to finish school and stay healthy, we need to think about sex ed.

Parents of girls should know that pregnancy is the number one reason that girls drop out of school – 30% of all girls who drop out quit because of pregnancy or parenting. Back in 2007, I co-chaired the Joint Legislative Commission on Dropout Prevention through which I became more convinced than ever that if we are to support girls in graduating from high school, we must prevent teen pregnancies.

In terms of protecting our children’s health, it is dangerous and short-sighted not to pay attention to sex ed.  A recent report from DHHS reveals shocking statistics from the first half of this year in North Carolina.  The report shows that in Buncombe County alone, 433 cases of chlamydia were reported in the first six months of this year (I was shocked to learn that this number is considered low compared to Mecklenburg County’s more than 3300 cases).  Across the state, a graph of sexually transmitted infections (STI) by age shows a nearly perfect bell curve with 15-19 year olds squarely in the middle.

While Buncombe County’s sex education program has been ahead of the curve in terms of providing info about STI transmission and protection, I believe the disturbing statistics that show young people bearing the burden of STI’s across the state are the result of the bare-bones, non-medically-accurate, head-in-the-sand policies that have dominated the way that sex ed is delivered to our young people in NC public schools for the past 20 years.

Enter the Healthy Youth Act taking effect this school year in public schools across North Carolina. I was proud to sponsor this legislation that for the first time in two decades mandates that students in grades 7-9 receive information about both abstinence and other medically accurate, science-based, age-appropriate ways to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancy.

I am grateful for all of the work of parents, students, and community members to help pass this legislation this year, giving our students a fighting chance at graduating from high school and staying healthy.

I am looking forward to checking that DHHS report this time next year – I believe that we will see numbers that are less grim and more reflective of what happens when young people are empowered with information to make safe, healthy decisions.”