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Wednesday, October 13, 1999
CCISD OKs pregnancy prevention plan
School district to focus on educating students earlier
By Jonathan Osborne
Caller-Times
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| Kimiko Fieg/Caller-Times |
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Eighth-grader Jessica Sanchez didn't know much about sex or having a baby. Nobody taught her the consequences of getting pregnant so young, she said. But at age 13, it happened.
"I was shocked," said Jessica, now 14 and a student at the Teenage Mothers School in Corpus Christi. "I had to deal with it. Now, I know the consequences of having a baby."
Officials at the Corpus Christi Independent School District are trying to find an easier way to teach students that lesson and prevent children like Jessica from getting pregnant.
A new effort,designed by the district's Teen Pregnancy Task Force, was approved Monday by the school board. The task force is composed of board members, district representatives and community representatives from various local and state health agencies.
Tips for teens from teens
Thinking pregnancy "won't happen to me" is stupid. If you don't protect yourself, it probably will. Sex is serious. Make a plan.
Just because you think "everyone is doing it," doesn't mean they are. Some are, some aren't - and some are lying.
There are a lot of good reasons to say "no, not yet." Protecting your feelings is one of them.
You're in charge of your own life. Don't let anyone pressure you into having sex.
You can always say "no," even if you've said "yes" before.
Carrying a condom is just being smart - it doesn't mean you're pushy or easy.
If you think birth control "ruins the mood," consider what a pregnancy test will do to it.
If you're drunk or high, you can't make good decisions about sex. Don't do something you might not remember or might really regret.
Sex won't make him yours, and a baby won't make him stay.
Not ready to be someone's father? It's simple: Use protection every time or don't have sex.
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The plan seeks to educate children earlier, starting in Pre K, by applying the same system of standards to teen pregnancy prevention that the district uses for academics, said Joseph Lopez, executive director for instructional support and chairperson of the task force.
"There's a lot of work to be done on this. There's a myriad of problems," Lopez said. "There's no way that educators can do it alone. You have to have educators, you have parents and you have to have community organizations and agencies."
Some highlights of the task force's recommended goals include:
Developing an action plan to guide CCISD's teen pregnancy prevention efforts.
Establishing teen-age pregnancy prevention lesson standards.
Identifying and making use of community partners and resources.
Increasing parent education and involvement.
Training staff related to teen pregnancy prevention efforts.
"We can only do so much in teaching facts, information about the body (and) human sexuality, but you actually have to develop skills to understand relationships," Lopez said. With the recommendations of the task force, Lopez said, children can learn at an earlier age how to avoid teen pregnancy.
An earlier education
During the 1997-1998 school year, 421 pregnancies in the school district were reported, with mothers' ages ranging from 11 to 19. According to 1997 statistics from the Texas Department of Health, 9.2 percent of all teen-age births in Texas occurred in Nueces County, which had the state's highest percentage of teen-age births.
Tips for parents from teens
Show us why teen pregnancy is such a bad idea. For instance, let us hear directly from teen mothers and fathers about how hard it has been for them. Even though most of us don't want to get pregnant, sometimes we need real-life examples to help motivate us.
Talk to us honestly about love, sex, and relationships. Just because we're young doesn't mean that we can't fall in love or be deeply interested in sex. These feelings are very real and powerful to us. Help us to handle the feelings in a safe way, without getting hurt or hurting others.
Telling us not to have sex is not enough. Explain why you feel that way, and ask us what we think. Tell us how you felt as a teen. Listen to us and take our opinions seriously. And no lectures, please.
Whether we're having sex or not, we need to be prepared. We need to know how to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
If we ask you about sex or birth control, don't assume we are already having sex. We may just be curious, or we may just want to talk with someone we trust. And don't think giving us information about sex and birth control will encourage us to have sex.
Pay attention to us before we get into trouble. Programs for teen moms and dads are great, but we all need encouragement, attention, and support. Reward us for doing the right thing, even when it seems like no big thing. Don't shower us with attention only when there is a baby involved.
Sometimes, all it takes not to have sex is not to have the opportunity. If you can't be home with us after school, make sure we have something to do that we really like, where there are other kids and some adults who are comfortable with kids our age. Often we have sex because there's not much else to do. Don't leave us alone so much.
We really care what you think, even if we don't always act like it. When we don't end up doing exactly what you tell us to, don't think that you've failed to reach us.
Show us what good, responsible relationships look like. We're as influenced by what you do as by what you say. If you demonstrate sharing, communication, and responsibility in your own relationships, we will be more likely to follow your example.
We hate "The Talk" as much as you do. Instead, start talking with us about sex and responsibility when we're young, and keep the conversation going as we grow older.
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Jessica said she feels that if she had learned more about sex and pregnancy earlier, she may have avoided getting pregnant.
"If they would have talked to us more about it and had other people who had this problem talked to us, if they would have explained to us how hard it was, I would have known what I would be expecting when I had a baby," Jessica said.
Stephanie Garza, 16, also believes that had she been taught earlier about teen pregnancy, she would have made better decisions.
"No one expects to be having a baby this young," Stephanie said. "(The schools) gave me information, but not enough. People go to school, but they still have a life. People need to be informed how life is."
That information should come sooner than it does now, said one task force member.
"Kids don't even know that when you return to school with a baby, you have to carry a backpack, your baby, your purse and your diaper bag," said Earnestine Garner, principal of CCISD's Teenage Mothers School and a task force member.
"They need to know the consequences and they need to know it earlier," she said.
Task force goals
But starting to educate students early about teen-age pregnancy prevention doesn't mean detailing sexual relationships to a child in kindergarten, Lopez said.
According to the task force's teen-age pregnancy prevention lesson standards for early elementary school, a child must learn to:
Appreciate the uniqueness of and proper care for one's own body.
Interact and communicate with peers, family members and others of both genders in respectful and effective ways.
Understand the role of sexuality throughout the life span.
Recognize the impact of family, cultural, religious, media and societal messages on thoughts, feelings, values and behaviors related to sexuality.
As the child grows older, the lesson standards become more focused, Lopez said. In middle school, the student is expected to learn about normal sexual functions and behavior, sexually transmitted diseases and how sexual decisions can affect themselves and others, he said.
In high school, students learn that sexuality and reproductive ability change through a life span and that dating can enable young adults to learn about potential partners for a long-term relationship, he said.
Amanda Stukenberg, executive director for Planned Parenthood of South Texas and a task force member, said she thinks the teen-age pregnancy prevention academic standards will succeed where past efforts have failed.
"What happened was a committee would come up with a new curriculum," Stukenberg said. "No matter how good or bad a curriculum was, the problem was implementation."
The curriculum, however, never was implemented across the board to all the schools, she said.
"What makes this different is the curriculum is being written into the academic standards, so there are set goals for a teacher to achieve that she will be held accountable for," Stukenberg said. "We've reached the bottom and I think the community is appalled, and it will support the district in making an effective curriculum work."
Tips for parents
Be clear about your own sexual values and attitudes.
Talk with your children early and often about sex, and be specific.
Supervise and monitor your children and adolescents.
Know your children's friends and their families.
Discourage early, frequent and steady dating.
Take a strong stand against your daughter dating a boy significantly older than she is. And don't allow your son to develop an intense relationship with a girl much younger than he is.
Help your teen-agers to have options for the future that are more attractive than early pregnancy and parenthood.
Let your kids know that you value education highly.
Know what your kids are watching, reading, and listening to.
These first nine tips for helping your children avoid teen pregnancy work best when they occur as part of strong, close relationships with your children that are built from an early age.
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Too often, sex education is a one-time shot ormerely a couple of classes, Stukenberg said.
"You have to give the information again and again," she said. "When the child is ready to really understand it, they'll really absorb it. Hopefully it can be integrated into the high schools so that every year we can enforce the message that you don't want to become a parent."
But the problem is deeper than just lack of sex education, Stukenberg said.
"There's too many kids who don't see themselves going to college, getting a career, and they allow pregnancy to happen because they don't see anything better on the horizon," Stukenberg said. "We hope kids will come away with a lot better understanding as to how important parenting is."
A society issue
William Albert, communications director for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy in Washington D.C., said there is no curriculum or program that is likely to work in every community, every time.
"There are no real simple, magic-bullet solutions to the problem," Albert said. "For a long time, this country thought if we just teach sex education in schools, kids will stop making bad choices. We're more likely to make long-term progress when we check the 'All-the-above box.' "
He said educators see the greatest results when they start teaching children early about preventing teen-age pregnancy.
"For a long time in this country, we waited until kids were 13 years old to start talking to them about love and sex, and that's too late," Albert said.
Albert said CCISD's program, because it is addressing the problem from both a community and curriculum-based angle, shows promise.
"No one group can do it alone," Albert said. "Folks are overcoming conflict and moving forward. They're recognizing that teen pregnancy isn't somebody else's problem."
With the community's support, teen-age pregnancy can be prevented, Garner said,
"It's a society issue," said Garner, who has been principal of the Teenage Mothers School for six years. "How many parents know that they really should be talking about these issues to a 9-, 10-, 11-year-old kid? But they need to."
The task force's goals should help get that process started, Garner said.
"It's not just a CCISD program," she said. "It's everybody's program."
Staff writer Jonathan Osborne can be reached at 886-3716 or by e-mail at osbornej@caller.com
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