Alaska Student Leaders Call for More Sex Education

During its recent spring conference in Sitka, the Alaska Association of Student Governments overwhelmingly passed a resolution requesting "a mandatory, comprehensive, medically accurate, age-appropriate nine-week sex education course" for all high school students statewide.

Some 225 student representatives from 20 Alaska high schools attended the conference. The resolution offers 19 reasons comprehensive sex education is needed in Alaska, including evidence of abstinence-only programs' ineffectiveness, the state's rank as No. 1 for per capita chlamydia cases and the public cost of teenage pregnancy.

Co-author Makenzie Curtis-Johnson, a junior at West Anchorage High School and an occasional Planned Parenthood volunteer, was surprised by the strong support the resolution garnered. "When you think about the subject, it's a controversial thing. And when you think of teenagers, you don't necessarily think they'd want to add mandatory subjects to their schedules, but they think it's important and that's really admirable."

"The main point is, Alaska as a state doesn't have a standardized sex education curriculum, period," said co-author Sam McNelly of South Anchorage High School. "We deserve to know," he said. "We need to make the choices."

Copies of the resolution are being sent to state legislators, the State Board of Education & Early Development and Anchorage-based education and municipal officials.

Back to other news for May 2009