New York State would have to approve policy
Students for Gender Equality, a club at Beacon High School, has asked the school board to allow the high school nurse to distribute condoms to students.
Ella Cason, Nico McKible and Mia Nelsen-Cheyne, all seniors, spoke during the public-comment portion of the board’s Oct. 2 meeting. The students said they had collected 75 signatures during Spirit of Beacon Day supporting the availability of contraceptives at the high school.
“We believe allowing students to access contraceptives will encourage teenagers to consider safer options and would be a better dialogue to discuss sexual health and safety,” Cason told the board. “It is up to us as a community to protect our students and make sure they are making decisions that help keep them safe.”
McKible, a co-president of Students for Gender Equality, said this week that the school nurse, who is the club adviser, told the students that condoms are not available. “That was surprising to us,” McKible said. “It felt like something really common-sense that should be taken care of.”
Board President Meredith Heuer and Superintendent Matt Landahl told The Current that they support making condoms available. Landahl noted that if the district moves forward, the initiative would allow parents to prevent their children from receiving contraceptives.
Although Beacon and Haldane high schools do not distribute contraceptives to students, New York allows public districts to do so under what it calls a Condom Availability Plan. The state must approve a district’s plan, and it requires dozens of conditions, such as training for the staff members who will provide “personal health guidance,” as well as the formation of an advisory council of parents, school board members, school personnel and community members, including representatives of a religious organization.
In addition, students would be required to complete an HIV/AIDS instructional program before receiving condoms.
Parents would be notified annually about the plan and the opt-out provision. Health guidance provided to students would describe abstinence as a “healthy and safe choice” for responsible sexual behavior, and the most effective way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
The school board must also approve the plan, although it is unclear from the state’s rubric when in the process that would happen.
Students in New York City can request free condoms, as well as information about sexual health through health resource rooms. In Rochester, the school board in 2012 approved condom distribution to high school students who had completed a health course that includes HIV/AIDS education and received guidance from a school nurse, including information about abstinence, safe sex, STDs and birth control, along with instruction on how to safely use a condom.
In a national survey this year of 3,480 K-12 school health workers, two-thirds of respondents said their schools or districts don’t provide students with contraceptives, including condoms. Last year, a federal judge in Texas ruled that Title X — a national program that would provide confidential and free birth control to anyone, regardless of age — violates parents’ rights. Parents must be informed if their children request birth control, the judge said. The ruling is being appealed by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Critics of condom distribution argue that making the contraceptive available in school sends students the wrong message about the safety of sexual activity. In the national survey by Education Week, 13 percent of school health workers said the number of pregnant students at their school or district had increased since 2019, while 79 percent said there had been no change.
According to a 2019 survey by the Guttmacher Institute, New York and California have the lowest percentages of high school students who have had sex, at 30 and 28 percent, respectively. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2017 calculated that, in a New York high school classroom with 30 students, seven are sexually active, two have had sex but are not active, and 21 have not had sex.
Of those sexually active, according to the Guttmacher survey, 58 percent of New York students said they had used a condom the last time they had sex. The national average was 54 percent. The percentage of students in New York who used any type of contraceptive was 84.5 percent.
The most recent figures from the state Department of Health found that 163 women aged 15 to 19 in Dutchess County were pregnant in 2016 and 55 percent had abortions, compared to 25 percent of older women.
Contraceptives are not the business of a teaching institution. Their only business is to educate. This among other political issues is noise and most of us animals of highest intellect are so easily brain-washed by noise. I appeal to the Board of Education: Teach the 3 Rs: reading, riting & rithmetic :-), etcetera… Please, discard the political noise. Bottom line, a child’s emotional, therapeutic, personal issues are the responsibility of their families.
I agree 100 percent. Schools should be teaching, not parenting.
The representative of “a religious organization” should not be included in implementing a plan within a public school district. (via Instagram)
A religious representative is part of the community. Diversity is crucial to avoid past mistakes when inclusion was not allowed. (via Instagram)
My high school had condoms in the nurse’s office in the early 1990s. I’m surprised Beacon does not already do this. (via Instagram)
Who wants to ask the nurse for condoms? Leave them in the bathroom or give them out at lunch. (via Instagram)
Narcan has become readily available and free in multiple ways in Dutchess County. At age 21, people can legally carry up to 3 ounces of marijuana. It’s pathetic that this state would make anything like this difficult. (via Instagram)