Judge opens dialogue on sex education

School, court officials consider how to best reach teenagers

By Sara Ganim

BELLEFONTE — Teen pregnancy is admittedly not county Judge Thomas King Kistler’s area of expertise.

But watching more and more young expectant mothers come before him in juvenile court made him wonder if there is something that needs to be looked at.

So Kistler invited local school, court, youth and health officials to a meeting Friday in his courtroom to find out if some of the things he’s been hearing and seeing are problems that can be addressed by the community.

“I’m just going to say it,” Kistler told the group of more than 50. “There are parties — in your school district — where if you are a young girl and you want to get into a party ... you show up and perform oral sex, sometimes anonymously, and that’s how you get into the party.”

Kistler, who earlier explained he was shocked by the concept, asked the room full of representatives from all over the county if they’d heard similar things.

One person hadn’t. “I guess we’ve got a problem everywhere, I guess there’s concern everywhere,” Kistler said. “We have to talk about these things.”

The meeting, Kistler said, was just to explore options, and their next step will be to try and have someone from the Pennsylvania Coalition to Prevent Teen Pregnancy speak to the group.

“This is my hope: The people in the room can come up with a solution, model and plan,” Kistler said. “The school boards could have a hard time ignoring it,” he later told the group.

This isn’t intended to step on parents’ toes, just help them. He said he recognizes: “We still haven’t reached the kids that are skipping school, we still haven’t reached the kids with dysfunctional parents.

“Clearly we need to address these problems from home and from schools,” he said. “We don’t want to interfere with how parents raise their children.”

Teen pregnancy in Centre County has actually been decreasing since 2000, but holding steady in the past few years, according to the state Department of Health. And the rate here is significantly lower than surrounding rural counties.

But pregnancy is only the most visible consequence of promiscuity. Local attorney Karen Muir pointed out it isn’t just about the girls.

“If we’re not getting that message to the boys, it’s not doing anything giving that message to the girls,” she said.

In the schools, one counselor says there are problems with the state’s sex education for teens.

“That’s a big part of it,” said Connie Schulz, family outreach specialist at State College Area High School, “They do talk about goals and dreams and so on. They are limited on how much they can say about birth control.”

There are two bills currently in the state legislature that deal with those concerns. One would require public schools to notify parents if the sex education is abstinence only. The other would require public schools to teach prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, noting abstinence is the best way.

But even with education, Schulz said many of the teens she deals with skip class or ditch school all together, and won’t hear the information even when it’s provided.

“We have as good as it can be with the information,” she said. “But kids are missing it.”

Kistler said he’s heard of students having sex on school buses, wearing colored wristbands to parties — each color indicating how far the girl is willing to go — then publishing what they’ve done on social networking sites.

“I think we don’t do enough of talking about the effects,” said Randy Trutt, a teacher at Bellefonte Area High School. “We sometimes forget in the school setting and community setting that it’s more than one person they’re affecting.”

Sara Ganim can be reached at 231-4616.