By Justin Shores
In response to Scott McCann’s March 29 commentary for Noozhawk, “Scott McCann: Opposition to Teen Talk Sex Ed Program Misses Valuable Learning Opportunity” I feel it is necessary to address his misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the huge community opposition to the Planned Parenthood supported Curriculum “Teen Talk”. It may be that he was the Director for Planned Parenthood California Central Coast or that he just did not actually read Peggy Wilson’s letter.
To be very clear, when I read Scott’s commentary I can agree with almost everything he says. Every single parent and community member that I have talked to about this wants our kids to have proper health and sex education. The small group of youth in Planned Parenthood shirts that handed out Planned Parenthood swag to the Board of Directors and Scott McCann seem to be the only people in Support of Teen Talk however.
Sex education will not reach the kids unless parents, teachers and students are all involved equally. We do not agree with a curriculum(Teen Talk) that encourages children to go around parents and also gives them unsafe and unhealthy choices like participating in anal sex and sex with multiple partners. There is no safe way to have anal sex and the risk for disease is much greater making it something that we should leave for adults to choose.
Teen Talk has multiple links to Planned Parenthood for kids to explore their sexuality and Health Connected has staff members with Planned Parenthood connections. I do not think people want a biased political lobby influencing our Curriculum. What if it was the NRA or a Christian organization for example? Like them or not Planned Parenthood is a controversial political organization that donates exclusively to one party and they are a business that makes money off the sexualization of young people.
Why would Santa Barbara Unified School District and Laura Capps, who also was on Planned Parenthoods Board of Directors, even consider to purchase such a controversial curriculum such as Teen Talk? Did they know Orange Unified School Board turned it down in 2018 because they found it to be against State Law? Why would they pay for this curriculum knowing that it will be taken to court by concerned parents?
We have provided the district with and alternative and free curriculum called HEART (Healthy Education and Relationship Training) that does fit the AB329 guidelines and does not cross the line sexually. It meets all state requirements but does not have a political or ideological objective. It also tries to include parents in the conversation making the chances for success much better. We can do better if we do not assist in over sexualizing our children and having open conversations about the risks of sex. This also can be an opportunity for parents who do not know how to talk to their kids about this to learn as well. If we can teach kids how life changing having an STD or pregnancy can be at a young age maybe we can stop using abortion as a contraceptive.
One of the many petitions against Teen Talk and Supporting the HEART curriculum can be viewed at Change.org and it had over 344 supporters prior to the drafting of this letter. We ask that the district be inclusive of all parents in this decision. We can reverse the STD trends and the amount of teen pregnancies with active parents and teachers educating our youth together as a team.
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