The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York called a new city requirement that sex education be taught
at all public middle and high schools “troubling” on Wednesday, and
some Catholic officials said they would advise Catholic parents not to
let their children participate.
In the first serious challenge to the city’s mandate, which was
announced on Tuesday, a spokesman for the archdiocese said the church’s
position was that parents, not the schools, should educate children
about sex.
“Parents have the right and the responsibility to be the first and
primary educators of their children,” Joseph Zwilling, director of
communications for the archdiocese, wrote in a statement.
“This mandate
by the city usurps that role, and allows the public school system to
substitute its beliefs and values for those of the parents.”
The sex-education curriculum — packages of lesson plans titled
HealthSmart and Reducing the Risk — describes abstinence as the best
method to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. It includes
lessons on how to use a condom and discussions about the appropriate
age for sexual activity.
The lesson plans have been recommended by the city for several years, and are already used in many schools.
Until now, principals have chosen what, if anything, is taught about
sexuality.
The city will now require that all students take a semester
of sex education in middle school and again in high school.
For schools
that do not have a program in place, the city will recommend that its
program be taught.
Edward Mechmann, a lawyer for the archdiocese, said he objected to the
“overall lesson” of the city’s program, “that abstinence is a nice
ideal.”
Mr. Mechmann said he would encourage parents to exercise an opt-out
clause and exclude their children from lessons about contraception.
“I’d
also insist that parents inspect the materials to make sure there’s
nothing really offensive or inaccurate being put in there,” he said. “We
don’t say that about cigarettes,” he added. “We don’t say, here’s a
filtered cigarette — it’s better than Camel.”
Nicholas A. DiMarzio, the bishop of Brooklyn, said he planned to work
with Catholic parents across the city to “assert their parent rights on
this issue.”
Some public schools that rent space from the church could
have to find new locations in which to teach the required courses.
But as parents and members of community groups and religious
organizations began to digest news about the new sex-education program
on Wednesday, there were few other objections.
Souleimane Konaté, an imam who is the head of the Masjid Aqsa mosque in Harlem, said he was in favor of the requirement.
“I think it’s a good idea,” he said. “I do talk about it sometimes, but
people look at me like I’m crazy because the imams aren’t supposed to
talk about it. It’s taboo in my community. But if somebody is doing it
for me, I would support them 100 percent.”
Several parents said that teenage pregnancy rates and the number of
young people with H.I.V. had made it difficult to oppose the requirement
on moral grounds.
Vanessa Mercado, the after-school program manager at
the Inwood Academy for Leadership charter school,
said that when she attended Catholic school, she never had a
sex-education class.
Things should be different for her daughter, Ms.
Mercado said.
“Children are exposed to sex in so many forms now that it’s better they
get the right information from someone,” she said.
Tesa Wilson, a member of the Community Education Council for District 14
in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, said she thought the new policy was
“right-on,” although she acknowledged that in her neighborhood, where
many families are observant, her view might not be widespread.
One possible reason for lowered temperatures around the topic of sex
education is that many New Yorkers once sat through health classes that
were, in many ways, more explicit.
In 1981, when Ms. Wilson was a
junior, sex education was taught, and the school would help students
obtain birth control and counseling if they asked, she said.
Janet Heller, principal of Middle School 324, recalled a previous
curriculum, titled Family Living Including Sex Education, which the
Board of Education mandated in 1986.
It covered many of the same topics
that the city’s current curriculum does, and it placed a heavy emphasis
on abstinence, Ms. Heller said. Nonetheless, it was controversial.
“At the time it was new, it was, ‘Oh my God, they’re going to be talking
about condoms,’ ” she said. “But now it’s old hat; they have condoms
next to candy in the drugstores.”
Throughout the 1990s, parents in a school district in western Queens
repeatedly made headlines for banning the words contraception, abortion,
homosexuality and masturbation from their schools’ health classes.
Under mayoral control, school boards no longer have the authority to
issue such orders, but some parents in District 24 still feel that sex
education is not the province of public schools.
“I don’t agree with it, because I think parents should teach their
children at their own discretion,” said Lucy Accardo, the mother of four
children and a member of the Community Education Council for District
24.