-- From "Pa. school district plagued with STDs" by Stephen Sacco, Times Herald-Record 6/27/08
MILFORD, Pa. — An estimated 10 percent of middle and high school students in the Delaware Valley School District are infected with a sexually transmitted disease. About two dozen teenage girls in the district have tested positive for pregnancy. And officials say there's one confirmed case of a student with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stepped in to track down students at risk for HIV, since the infected student is reported to have had multiple sex partners in the district, officials say.
School officials released the alarming figures in a letter sent home June 15 to the parents of the more than 3,000 Delaware Valley middle and high school students. Maternal and Family Health Services in Milford — a nonprofit health clinic serving male and female patients — alerted the district to the figures. Clinic officials say they estimate that more than 300 Delaware Valley middle and high school students contracted a sexually transmitted disease in the past year; and 25 to 30 girls tested positive for pregnancy. Students as young as 12 years old reported being sexually active, officials say.
. . . There is little for teens do in the area.
"They get bored, and they have sex," [said 15-year-old student Rachel McKean.]
Then, there's the health curriculum. "(The district) only teaches abstinence," McKean said. "They don't teach safer sex practices."
The Board of Education is currently revising the health curriculum.
But people are talking, like Jordan Young, 24, and his sister, Aja Young, 12.
"I think it's kind of ridiculous how such a good area, and such a good school district, can have this happen," said Aja Young.
To read the entire article, CLICK HERE.
Can you believe that this 'journalist' quotes children as to the cause of the problem AND for a course of action?!
