Pencils, books and dirty looks: HIV goes back to school
POZ: New York City’s Department of Education has this year spent $203,000 on the Health Smart program, which aims to standardize sex education within middle and high schools, offering six lessons each year devoted exclusively to HIV/AIDS.
NEG: The National Abstinence Education Association launched a campaign in June urging 1 million parents to support abstinence-only education in U.S. schools—even though it has proven ineffective in preventing pregnancy and STD transmission among teenagers and young adults.
POZ: The voluntary out-of-school Smart Sex Education Program that launched in Westford, Massachusetts, earlier this year teaches parents how to better discuss sex with their kids and make “the talk” a whole lot less awkward and more informative.
NEG: In May, South Carolina’s House of Representatives eliminated mandatory disclosure of students’ HIV status in public schools—but Governor Mark Sanford called for its reinstatement just weeks later. He also suggested that other blood-borne illnesses such as hepatitis C should be added to these notifications.
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