For teens in Deep East Texas, accessing sex education and contraception is next to impossible - KPRC2 Texas
in the nation, along with Nevada, Utah, Mississippi and North Carolina, to have such a requirement for sex education and the only state requiring parental permission to teach about child abuse.
Every few years, the Texas State Board of Education sets standards about what is to be included in teachers’ lesson plans, whether it’s social studies, math or health. These standards are known as the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or TEKS. But no state agency tracks whether districts employ these standards. Students eventually take annual standardized tests on core subjects like math and science, but there is no such test for health.
“Have we been able to decipher the bill yet?” Cecily Bridges, a Hemphill school nurse and the council’s chairperson, asked during the meeting. She turned to Stephen English, Hemphill Independent School District’s superintendent, for an assist.“It’s hard to interpret what we’re required to do,” Hemphill Middle School principal Jeremy McDaniel interjected.
“I don’t care for the school to be teaching the kid sex ed. That’s my job,” one parent said during the health advisory council meeting for Chester ISD in nearby Tyler County in April. “I’ll do that.” A homemade billboard along Farm to Market Road 83 outside of Hemphill on Dec. 30, 2022. In this region of the state, religion is entangled in community life and conversations about sex education. Credit: Annie Mulligan for The Texas Tribune
On a Friday morning in November, Excellent Teen Choice educator Eric Love, 47, launched into a class about sexually transmitted diseases as he stood before 10th graders at Tenaha High School. Eric Love, who provides abstinence-based sex education through the nonprofit Excellent TEEN Choice, speaks about STDs to students at Tenaha High School on Nov. 11, 2022. The nonprofit is funded by the state’s Abstinence Education Program. Credit: Shelby Tauber for The Texas Tribune
“I need you guys to understand the way this happened,” Love said. “Although this is a game, it’s not a game in real life.” Before students went on to their next classes, Love returned to his main point: abstinence. “It is our hope, our aim that you all will listen to this message: The best decision for your health, for your life, for your children’s lives is to save sex until marriage.”“Now that I understand what can happen, I’ll probably say no [to sex] until marriage,” she said.abstinence-only sex education or no sex education at all correlates with high teen birth rates.
Valerie Polk stands in front of a cabinet containing several types of contraception at the clinic for the Jasper Newton County Public Health District. It’s the only clinic in the region that has historically been able to prescribe birth control to minors without obtaining parental consent. Credit: Annie Mulligan for The Texas TribuneOver the years, Valerie Polk has gotten very comfortable with subterfuge.
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