P-town condom distribution draws applause, ire

Superintendent promises to revise policy allowing condom access to elementary school children.

A newly reformed school policy in Provincetown, Massachusetts has activists and politicians calling into question the standards of appropriate sex education for students. The policy drew so much criticism, Superintendent Beth Singer sent a letter to parents on Wednesday, June 30 assuring them that the policy allowing their children to obtain condoms would be changed.

Under the soon-to-be-revised policy, elementary school students -- from pre-kindergarten to fifth grade -- in the Cape Cod town will be able to obtain condoms upon request from any school nurse beginning this fall. The students' names would not be kept on record, but they would be required to have a conversation with the nurse about safe-sex practices and alternatives, including abstinence.

"I would prefer to hear parents say to their children, 'You're not allowed to have sex,' as opposed to, 'You're not allowed to have a condom,'" Superintendent of Provincetown schools Beth Singer told 365gay.com. Singer said she wouldn't expect that five-, six-, or seven-year-olds will even seek out the new services, voted unanimously into being by the school board. "What would they do with [a condom], make a balloon?" she asked. "It's silly."

After receiving a phone call from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, however, Singer admitted that the school board may consider limiting the policy to students in the fifth grade and higher. Wednesday's letter confirmed that the policy will be changed, but did not specify how.

"As I listened to the media's interpretation of our policy, it became clear that it is vulnerable to being misunderstood," Singer wrote. "It is most important that it be clearly understood by you and future parents of Provincetown students. Therefore we will revise the policy for better clarity."

The Governor made his position on the policy public and clear.

"While he knows it is a local decision, the Governor is very concerned about Provincetown's program," said Juan Martinez, Patrick's Press Secretary. "It is simply not age appropriate to have a program in place for such young children, not to mention not having parents of such young children involved. Comprehensive reproductive health education needs to be done in an age appropriate manner."

A 2006 study published in Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health revealed that 7% of high school students had had sexual intercourse before the age of 13. "As young people progress through adolescence, sexual intercourse becomes a normative behavior," the study's authors, Renee E. Sieving, Marla E. Eisenberg, Sandra Pettingell, and Carol Skay, concluded. "[S]exual education is vitally important to preparation for adulthood," they wrote.

Governor Patrick's camp maintained that the incumbent candidate in this year's gubernatorial race is not opposed to sexual education as long as it meets public standards of "age appropriate."

"In those instances where local communities have agreed to make condoms available in school clinical settings, the norm according to our Department of Public Health is high school," Martinez said. "The Governor has spoken with the Superintendent and expressed his belief that they should revise the policy to make it consistent with practices in other communities."

The Governor's concerns were reiterated in a statement from Education Secretary Paul Reville. "[T]he Governor and I had concerns about whether or not the policy was age appropriate," Reville said. "We are firmly committed to ensuring that all school districts provide comprehensive health education and will continue to consult with our colleagues in public health and avail ourselves of their expertise and resources in helping schools shape policies that help keep children and teenagers safe and ready to learn."

Some activists, however, lauded the policy as a progressive step to curtail the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases among students, some of whom are likely already sexually active.

"Provincetown, and in this particular case the school committee, was taking a proactive stance in this crucial public health fight," Laura Thornton, Executive Director of the AIDS Support Group of Cape Cod, said. "Just as distributing clean needles to those in need does not create injection users, and providing HPV vaccines to 12-year-old girls does not serve as an incentive to have sex, making condoms available through a nurse's office will not escalate sexual activity in our youth."

The Massachusetts Commission on GLBT Youth released a statement calling for more cooperation and open dialogue between parents of elementary school children and educators, and the students. "Parents and schools should teach children about their maturing bodies and how to deal sensibly with their sexual desires, to delay sex until they are ready, to negotiate with their partners to set comfortable limits, to stay healthy, and not to become pregnant until they are ready to become parents themselves," the statement, provided by Commission Chair Arthur Lipkin, read. "It's important for all sexually active students -- both male and female, LGB and straight -- to know why and how to practice safe sex before they begin to have it."

Michael Shankle, Director of the MALE Center at the AIDS Action Committee, saw the ambiguous role of sex educator as the problem. "Oftentimes when we think of sex education, parents believe that the schools are doing it, the schools believe that the parents are doing it, and often there's this big void of information that young people don't have access to," he said. Data reflecting teen pregnancy and rates of STD infection in young people "are all elevated," Shankle said. "It isn't happening because people are not having sex; it's because people are having sex and they are experimenting and they need to have access to the prevention tools that they need to stay healthy. That includes knowledge, it includes condoms, it includes access to nurses or counselors that can ask and give them correct information around their sexual health."