North Carolina: Proposal Reopens Divide Over Sex Ed

Wake County, N.C., school administrators plan to present their recommendations for a sex education curriculum to the school board Oct. 8, and they will hold a town meeting Oct. 17 to discuss the proposal. The administrators, who are caught between those favoring comprehensive sex education and abstinence-only supporters, are being tight-lipped about what they will recommend. A school advisory committee recommended in March that comprehensive sex education be taught, and school administrators are going through the steps necessary to make the change.

Wake went from comprehensive sex education to abstinence-only in 1995 after the General Assembly made abstinence-until-marriage the default curriculum in grades 7-9. Only about a dozen school districts in North Carolina teach comprehensive sex education, but two of them -- Durham and Chapel Hill-Carrboro -- are in the Triangle area.

State law does not require public hearings unless school districts want to go beyond abstinence. Under comprehensive sex education, students can learn about such topics as masturbation, homosexuality and how to use contraceptives. Wake administrators say they plan to present their recommendations to medical groups and set up five sites around the county where the public could learn more about the new curriculum. The school board would vote Nov. 19.

But to abstinence supporters, it is clear where school administrators are going. "If it was just a small change, why would they have hired a consultant and why would they have spent the summer on the curriculum?" asked Sarah Harden, chairperson of Citizens for Excellence in Education, the lead group fighting to keep the abstinence-only curriculum. Since the advisory council's recommendation, CEE has packed council meetings. A May meeting on the School Health Advisory Council's recommendations drew a standing-room only crowd.

Supporters of comprehensive sex education lobbied school board members behind the scenes for a change for years, with little success; now they campaign openly. The Wake County Health Education Task Force lists among its supporters the NAACP Raleigh-Apex chapter and the Boys and Girls Club of Wake County.

Task members say that abstinence would still be a major component of comprehensive sex education. The group also points out that parents could keep their children out of the classes no matter what curriculum is used.

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