March 16, 2008 -- The city is spending $203,000 to make sure all students are learning about the same birds and bees.
Until now, the content of sex-education classes was decided by individual schools - with some principals abstaining from programs completely.
This year, the Department of Education is trying to fix that, introducing a standard Health Smart program that focuses heavily on contraception and learning to say no.
But if you're a student now, you might miss out. The Post has found that since November, only about 120 of the system's 385 high schools have sent teachers to be trained in the new Health Smart curriculum. Teachers from 44 of approximately 590 schools with middle-grade students have received the training since January.
And the DOE does not know which schools are actually teaching Health Smart, since it does not yet have a system in place to track whether it has been implemented, said Lori Benson, director of the Office of Fitness and Health Education.
Still, Benson said, she was pleased with the pace of the training and expected the curriculum to be fully implemented by June 2009.
Even with the new guidelines, however, sex education is not mandatory, and principals pick what, if anything, students learn. Middle- and high-school students are required to have six lessons each year in HIV and AIDS.
The new curriculum includes lessons on nutrition, physical activity and other topics. It emphasizes abstinence to middle-school students, though there is some discussion of birth-control options. Older teens get an expansive overview of contraception and lessons on remaining disease-free, resisting sexual pressure and preventing HIV.
Studies have found that high-school students in other states who went through the sex-ed lessons, called "Reducing the Risk," remained abstinent longer than those who did not. Those who did have sex were more likely to use birth control than other teens.
The lesson plans come at a time when the city's teen birth rate is on the rise and federal statistics show that 26 percent of girls between ages 14 and 19 have at least one common sexually transmitted disease. Almost half of all public high-school students report they have had sex, according to the Department of Health's latest statistics.
Dana Czuczka, associate vice president of government affairs at Planned Parenthood of New York City, said the DOE's efforts are a good first step.
"We believe it's time that we treat sex ed as seriously as we treat math or social studies," she said. "Our hope is that every kid will be taught sex ed in every grade every year."
