PRINTSTD protection
What local schools are teaching
Katharine Johnson
April 17, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Teens might try to keep their love lives under the covers, but a study released March 11 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has opened the door to some startling information. It estimates that 3.2 million teenage girls are infected with at least one sexually transmitted disease. This news leaves parents facing the reality that one in four young women in the U.S. is infected with human papillomavirus (HPV), chlamydia, herpes simplex virus or trichomoniasis. HPV is the most common — occuring in 72 percent of those infected with an STD.
Rock Bridge High School health teacher Vicki Reimler finds the statistics startling. “Unfortunately, it indicates how many young women are sexually active and not using protection,” she says.
Reimler admits she would be naive to think her students are doing everything right in the bedroom, but she believes the Columbia Public School District provides students with great information when it comes to making sexual choices.
Columbia teachers introduce STDs during a sixth grade health unit, where students learn the basics of all diseases, says Sara Torres, the science and health coordinator for the district. By the end of year, she says, “students should know the names, causes, symptoms, prevention, treatment and prognosis.”
Teachers should always be educating students on treatments and preventative measures, she says, though the curriculum promotes abstinence as the only way to truly protect against STDs.
“One of the things we make sure they share is the prevention and that there are some vaccines,” Torres says. “Not that we promote a vaccine, but we do share that (Gardasil) is available, just like the flu vaccine.” The CDC encourages girls as young as 11 to get the new HPV vaccine.
STD education continues in ninth grade with a mandatory human sexual relations unit and disease unit. Students review the basics taught in sixth grade and learn more about the social consequences of STDs by comparing them. The upper-level curriculum teaches students how the diseases can affect “the physical, mental, emotional, intellectual, economical and professional well-being” of students, Torres says.
Hickman High School Principal Michael Jeffers believes that providing the most recent information is important, but he says this doesn’t guarantee students are making the information applicable to their own lives. “The issue of impacting their decision-making processes is a huge challenge for us as educators,” he says.
Up-to-date content should help shed light on the issue, but the school system can’t do the dirty deed of teaching sex education without outside help. Torres hopes the families and pediatricians of Columbia are helping to pass on the information to teens. Jeffers agrees.
“This is a community-wide issue,” Jeffers says, “and how we coordinate through local agencies, parents, health care providers will be important to help address the issue.”
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By Sili Liang
