By Matt Gleckman

Boys and girls have different "equipment," and teenagers have raging hormones (blush, blush) — and teaching them how to maturely handle this potentially deadly and life-altering combination is not so cut-and-dried.

Controversy surrounds the issue of sex education and the prevalence of today’s "sex sells" attitude, which is apparent in many of the magazines, song lyrics, television shows and movies currently available, is not helping matters much. Every year, 10 out of every thousand girls between the ages of 10 and 17 in Montezuma County become pregnant; statewide, the rate is 11.8 per thousand.

Some of the questions that are often raised include:

• Who is responsible for sex education?

• How young is too young to begin discussing sex with kids?

• Does teaching about contraception advocate sexual behavior?

Byron Wiehe, Cortez Middle School’s principal, said that state standards have helped CMS teachers to establish some guidelines for educating kids about sex.

"Drugs, alcohol, tobacco and sexual issues are all topics that need to be covered," said Wiehe. "Having the state guidelines for curriculum helps these teachers pick their battles."

According to Wiehe, the curriculum used in the seventh grade, considered by officials to be "age-appropriate," has been provided through a communication grant that supplies the school with money for a counselor and materials. The textbooks were reviewed by faculty and administrators and approved by the school board. Also, parents can ask at any time to see the materials being used in a class and can opt to remove their child if they don’t approve, he said.

The text material used discusses puberty, reproduction, HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases and abstinence, but will not discuss contraceptives. "Teachers won’t push off the tough questions that a student might ask," said Wiehe, "Instead, they will channel the student to a counselor within the school who can help."

The teachers are trained to identify students who are developing ahead of their class sexually and try to steer them in the right direction, said the principal, but nothing is 100 percent.

"In the past there have been eighth-grade girls who have been pregnant and there may be more down the road, but you can’t say that an advanced sexual-education program would have taken care of this," Wiehe said.

Dale Smith, who teaches a unit of sex education within his seventh-grade science class at CMS, says that his curriculum is strictly abstinence-based. "I don’t advocate contraceptives and I don’t discuss them," he said. "They are not 100 percent safe."

"If you saw a headline that read ‘The only safe sex is no sex,’ wouldn’t that tell you all you needed to know?" asked Smith.

Paddy McSherry, clinic manager for Cortez Planned Parenthood, says, however, that this seems more like a scare tactic.

"I think that it is kind of sad that the junior high doesn’t give their students more info, because kids at this age are ready to make decisions," McSherry said.

"Kids are never too young to start educating them about sex," she added. "We always try to encourage people to wait until they are ready for sex and we let them know that they shouldn’t be pressured into something they don’t want to do.

"At the same time, they need to have the tools necessary to make the right decisions."

"There are kids in grade school coming by Planned Parenthood to get condoms," said the clinic manager. "Even if they are using them to paper somebody’s house, at least they know where to get them if they need them and they can feel comfortable coming in here."

Overall it seems like there is more youth awareness about the consequences of sex and more kids taking responsibility for their actions, McSherry said.

"I am seeing more and more young men and young couples coming in to be tested for STDs (sexually transmitted diseases). However, I am still surprised by the number of kids who think that withdrawal is a safe form of birth control."

At the high-school level, certified health teacher Dick Donahoo organizes and runs the health program, which is mandatory for students.

According to Donahoo, the half-credit course follows a curriculum that discusses topics that kids want to talk about: drugs, alcohol, tobacco, sexuality and combinations of all of these.

"There is a lot of resistance in the community and it is hard to teach kids in the right way," said Donahoo. "We don’t want to embarrass kids but at the same time we don’t want to make it (the class) so superficial that it seems like nothing is going on."

Within his class, said Donahoo, there are only two things he won’t talk about—religion and abortion.

"During the sexuality portion of the course, we discuss anatomy/physiology, the menstrual cycle, behavioral aspects, childbirth, and how (those topics) relate to a person’s physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual well-being."

"I emphasize abstinence, but I am not forced to strictly teach it and I hope that I’m not ever going to have to," he added.

Donahoo also mentioned the importance of teachers being certified in the course they teach. Just as an algebra teacher should be certified in algebra, a health teacher should be certified in health, he said.