Bibb County, Georgia, Sex Education Policy Questioned; School Board Member Urges Review of Current Sex-Ed Curriculum

At least one Bibb County Board of Education member and other health officials in the Georgia county said Monday they think the school system should review its sex education curriculum. "The whole business of getting information to young people about AIDS and the transmission of AIDS concerns me," said Susan Middleton, head of Macon Alliance for Education Excellence and one of eight school board members. "Are we exposing them to death because we do not give them information?"

Georgia requires all school systems to teach its students an abstinence-focused sex education curriculum. Raynette Evans, director of athletics, health and physical education, said, "Bibb County Board of Education also has its own policy that governs exactly what we do and do not teach." For example, the school system does not teach how to use contraceptives, but it does teach students ways to say no to sex. "If students have questions about sex that are outside of our curriculum, then we refer them back to their parents, their guardians, their ministers, people of that nature," she said. The debate about what students should and should not be taught began to resurface this week after a Bibb principal told the Telegraph that she thought the curriculum was inadequate. "We can't just arbitrarily -- because a student has a question -- move outside their curriculum," Evans said.

"I'm not against looking at things periodically to see if they're current and see if they are effective," said Gary Bechtel, another school board member. Sen. Susan Cable, (R-Macon), a former school board member, said the curriculum is not, and should not be, the only education students get about sex. Ecleamus L. Ricks, director of the Macon Bibb County Health Department, agrees. He said he wished "the school board would just relax their policy so that we -- the health department and other people . . . can come into the school and talk about how to protect yourself. We've kind of pushed it into the background and haven't really wanted to talk about it," he said.

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