Parents Angry About Middle School Condom Access But Someone Has To Teach Them About Safe Sex

Some Oregon middle school students will now have access to condoms in order to combat a spike in teen pregnancies, and as expected, people are outraged. The Gervais School District, just outside of Portland, passed a rule this week that says certain, specified teachers will be able to hand out condoms to students who ask for them. I suppose the push-back against this rule is understandable, but if parents were teaching their kids proper sexual education, then this wouldn’t be necessary, now would it?According to Superintendent Rick Hansel, who spoke with CBS:

“If they wanted a condom, they would have to meet with a teacher- a designated teacher, the sex ed teacher, or some of our counselors and maybe some administrators…There would be designated people for students to have a conversation with and then a condom would be distributed at that time.’

According to CBS, school administrators believe that making it necessary for students to speak to a teacher before being given a condom will do more good than simply leaving them out in an open area. Personally, I think this will just cause kids to try to find protection in other ways, or use none at all, but at least this is a step in the right direction.

The new rule was proposed after the area saw a seven percent increase in teenage pregnancies at Gervais High School. School officials hope that the new rule, which is being put in place in both the middle and high schools, will help stem the tide of unwanted teen pregnancies. According to Hansel:

“I think the concern was that if we have our middle school, we have some of the same teachers teaching the same topics at the high school, obviously there’s going to be a different type of curriculum for the middle school, but at some point they just kind of felt it would evolve to that anyway- so let’s just include them (sixth graders).”

Parents are split on the rules, with some supporting it and others arguing that middle school is too young for these types of discussions. Here’s the thing. Teens ARE getting pregnant. And this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Last time I checked, puberty starts well before high school, and if you aren’t willing to teach your children about sex ed (and many parents apparently aren’t, judging from the teen pregnancy rate) then someone has to do it.

(Photo: CandyBox Images/Shutterstock)