Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-East Shore/Brooklyn) today joined two other Republican elected officials and the NYC Parents’ Choice Coalition — which is run by a Democratic former assemblyman — in saying she wants the city to offer parents an alternative curriculum predicated on abstinence from sexual activity.
“Legislatures across the nation spend millions upon millions of dollars to combat sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy, highlighting the importance of sexual education,” said Ms. Malliotakis in a written statement. “However, this particular curriculum being forced on children by the New York City Department of Education contains material that is both explicit and graphic.”
Department of Education officials maintain that the school system “does not mandate” a specific curriculum, only that schools include a sex-ed component to health classes.
Ms. Malliotakis was referring to information from the Parents’ Choice Coalition, whose Web site lists curriculum samples, including:
* scanned workbook pages that direct students, as homework, to map out routes to abortion clinics and catalogue different brands of condoms
* an instructional video, described as “the kind of condom demonstration your child will experience,” displaying how to put a condom onto a phallus-shaped object
* sample answers from Columbia University’s “Go Ask Alice” Web site on topics including foot fetishes, pornography and “swing clubs.” The coalition states that one of the recommended curriculum’s “Health Facts” books lists that Web site as a resource for middle schoolers.
It’s unclear how much, if any, of that material will actually be present in city schools’ curricula.
Department of Education officials told the Advance today that the school system does not recommend using the sample workbook pages, which were referenced in a New York Post story yesterday.
As for Go Ask Alice, officials said that none of the sex-ed books ordered by city schools direct readers to that Web site.
Ms. Malliotakis today joined Rep. Bob Turner (R-Brooklyn/Queens) and state Sen. Marty Golden (R-Brooklyn), as well as the head of the NYC Parents’ Choice Coalition, former Assemblyman Michael Benjamin (D-Bronx), at a press conference in Brooklyn.
“New York is a multicultural city whose residents hold a variety of deeply held beliefs and social traditions,” Benjamin said. “It’s wrong to force them to choose between what the city is planning and no sex education at all. Parents who want a more traditional, abstinence-based sex education curriculum for their children should be able to have that.”
A survey taken this spring showed 64 percent of middle schools were already using the city’s recommended HealthSmart curriculum on sex education. In high schools, 43 percent of principals said they used that program and 38 percent said they used Reducing the Risk, another recommended sex-ed curriculum. HIV/AIDS education is already mandatory in city schools.
Greg Pfundstein, the executive director of the anti-abortion Chiaroscuro Foundation, which financially backs the parents’ coalition, said the organization ordered the course material for both HealthSmart and Reducing the Risk, and found the homework sheets and reference to Go Ask Alice.
“Now, the city wants to deny that they use the book that includes the reference to goaskalice.com, but it is definitely in the curriculum, in the ‘Health Facts’ book,” he said. “When we followed the link from the DOE, above, to the vendor of the curriculum and ordered the curriculum, they shipped us, wrapped up together in one package, the teacher book, the student work book, and the ‘Health Facts’ book, which is a supplemental book for the use of teachers and students.”
He added, “But maybe they don’t use it. If that is the case, they need to clarify how they use the Health Smart curriculum.”
The new policy requires sex-ed lessons during one semester in both middle and high school. The city “strongly” recommends middle schoolers be taught it as part of a health curriculum, in either sixth or seventh grade, and high schoolers in ninth or 10th grade.
“Abstinence is a very important part of the curriculum, but we also have a responsibility to ensure that teenagers who are choosing to have sex understand the potential consequences of their actions and know how to keep themselves safe,” said Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott.
“So we need a comprehensive curriculum. Abstinence is the only way to be 100 percent safe, but one-third of the new cases of chlamydia
Parents will be able to opt out only of classes that focus on condoms and other birth control methods. In those classes, middle and high school students will be given a “verbal description” of how to use a condom, education officials said.
There will be no physical demonstrations in the classroom, but there will be in health resource rooms, where schools can already provide condoms to students.
Parents will not be able to opt out of other sex education lessons, focusing on everything from avoiding risky behavior that can lead to HIV, pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases to how to refuse or delay sexual activity if a student is not ready.
Rep. Michael Grimm, who was in Washington and unable to make today's press conference, also backs providing alternatives for parents, said his spokeswoman, Carol Danko.
“He is simply asking that other options be available to parents who want them. New York City is home to so many different cultures — each with their own unique views on sexual education — so having a diverse array of options for parents makes sense,” she said.
Michael Reilly, a member of the borough’s Community Education Council 31, said he’d like to see more clarity from school officials about what the curriculum will ultimately entail.
“It is unacceptable that parents will only have an ‘opt-out’ option in regards to birth control methods. The parents should have more options concerning sex education and their children,” he said. “The lack of transparency with this program has only inflamed tensions between parents and the DOE.”
Added CEC President Sam Pirozzolo, “The DOE should have a very simple and straightforward sex education curriculum that teaches children about their bodies and the changes they go through.
“They should be taught about sex and pregnancy and how not to become pregnant. Any other conversation about sex, straight sex, gay sex, sexual positions, multiple partners, and so on, goes far beyond what any child or person needs to know to keep themselves safe.”
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