Georgia law requires schools to teach sex education, human sexuality and HIV/AIDS prevention, and says “instruction shall emphasize abstinence from sexual activity until marriage and fidelity in marriage as important personal goals.” Schools can use coursework that is abstinence-based or more comprehensive sex ed curriculums.
Fulton County's school board will vote soon on changing it's abstinence-based coursework and quietly tried to notify parents of the changes by asking parents to come by 13 schools to review the documents. Other districts, such as Gwinnett will also be updating their courses soon.
“In Fulton, we have an abstinence-centered approach and everything is geared toward … why you’d want to choose to not have sex,” said Tasha Guadalupe, health and physical education coordinator for Fulton schools, which adopted “Choosing the Best” - the name of the course in 2001. “It’s a risk-avoidance curriculum, so it’s explained why the things that can happen and why you’d choose not to want to have sex.”
Some health advocates have argued against “Choosing the Best” and other abstinence-centered curriculums, saying they convey inaccurate information, shame sexually active students or exclude those who come from families where parents are not married. “Choosing the Best” covers contraception, but does not advocate or demonstrate contraceptive use.
“It’s such a taboo topic for so many families that many kids, the only place they’re getting any education is at school on this,” says one parent The Atlanta Journal-Consitution talked to. “If they’re not going to get it at home, they’ve got to get it from school. You don’t want to send them out into the world not armed to make those big decisions for themselves.”
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