Massachusetts town will allow elementary school to pass out condoms
The Provincetown Massachusetts School Committee has passed a new condom policy that will allow both its high school and ELEMENTARY school to pass out condoms to CHILDREN who request them.
The vote was unanimous but it does come with some controversy within the school committee– although not for the reasons you would think. Those who voted for the policy, but voiced some concerns over the policy are upset that the new policy isn’t liberal enough.
Dr. Beth Singer, school superintendent, argued that since there is no age limit on the distribution policy, she wanted to ensure that younger students requesting condoms receive information on their use.
The quote above is what some on the committee have a problem with. Putting aside for a moment– if possible– the entire fact that it is absolutely ludicrous that the school committee voted to pass out condoms to anyone regardless of age, what is even more ludicrous is the fact that the concern raised about this policy was because students are required to see the nurse to get the condoms.
I don’t like that students can’t be discreet about this,” said school committee member Shannon Patrick. “They have to go and ask for it. I’d rather them not have the conversation [with counselors] and have the condom than not have the condom.”
“I can see some kids opting out because of the conversation. I’m not against [the policy]. I’m just trying to put myself in that teenager’s spot
The concerns raised about this policy center around the fact that a child would have to ask a nurse for a condom; the opponents feel that the condoms should be available without a child even having to ask for them. Asking for them will put too much stress on them and scare them away from getting a condom according to these people.
But this story does not end there; it gets even worse. Written into the policy is the statement that the schools will not honor a parent’s request that their child not be given a condom. The school knows better than the parent and the parent has no say in this matter, that is the message that is being sent by the Provincetown School Committee.
The idea that a twelve year old can go to the school nurse and request a condom even after the parents of that twelve year old have told the school that they do not wish their child be given that condom is unbelievable on its own. But when you couple it with the fact that there are school committee members who believe that the twelve year old should just be able to get the condom from a free condom dispenser in the bathroom– or some other means like this– without at least having to learn how to actually use it is astounding to me.
Somehow educating a CHILD before they give that CHILD a condom is wrong in the minds of those that are supposed to be educating our children. Even having a conversation about sex and condoms is wrong according to some members of the Provincetown School Committee; they believe our CHILDREN are better left in the dark as long as they can get their condom, that is the important thing in their mind. But it isn’t surprising considering that the Provincetown School Committee decided it was okay to hand out condoms to CHILDREN in the first place.
America's Watchtower 
AND THIS IS WHY I HOMESCHOOL!!!
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This story completely blows my mind. At the very least, why would they want to hand out condoms to elementary age children? Instead, why not educate them that abstinence is the best policy? By opting into the theory that they are going to have sex, no matter what their parent say, they are creating and enabling a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is a very sad state of affairs.
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You touched on the biggest problem, this policiy helps to enable them. As for teaching them that abstinence is the best policy, somehow the left has made the abstinence idea to be a religious issue therefor is shouldn’t be taught in public schools. It certainly is a sad state of affairs.
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You have to remember we are talking about Massachusetts here. It is one of the most liberal states in the country,second to California. People wonder how Ted Kennedy stayed in power so long,you can see why now.
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So true!
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and yet you don’t see California having this issue…. so I have to disagree, I think Massachusetts is more liberal…
This blows my mind, I have 4 nieces & nephews under the age of 10, my boyfriend’s daughter is 8, do we want her to have the option of getting condom? Heck no!
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Help educate and motivate people to take action for obtaining abstinence education in schools at least as a choice, for chastity and abstinence to be taught in the Home and at church. For people to learn the arguments and fight back against the culture. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chastity-Abstinence-Education/125749137440317?v=wall
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Learn the social, emotional, psychological and physical reasons to protect the marital. Learn how our gov’t, media, and schools are selling our youth and families down river. Guarenteed that there will be an abundance of motivating information. Come join and help spread the word to others, to churches. to the culture at large
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chastity-Abstinence-Education/125749137440317?v=wall
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Hello, I am writing a story for cnn.com, are you a parent at the school? if so i would like to get comments from you please.
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Luckily for me I am not.
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More and more reasons to get out of the public schools come up all the time. This is an outrage. Thanks for posting it.
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No problem Matt. Thanks. Yet is an outrage and I expect this policy to spread throughout the country if it is not stopped in time.
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As I told Larry privately, Steve, condoms is not all Massachusetts is involved in. I think you even covered it here on your blog. Fisting.
My biggest problem WITH all of this is the fact that the decisions and choices of parents are being cast aside for a hyper-sexual, homosexual agenda. This is no longer about children and their welfare or about education. This is about SEX and PERVERSION … period.
THIS is why I advocate home schooling or private schools. When the school determines they have the right to subvert a parents authority, children become extremely vulnerable for being exploited in a myriad of ways.
Just as a side note, I can’t even imagine, if instructed, that an 8 year old would be able to use a condom correctly or understand why they should.
This just make me sick to my stomach. I keep praying that my daughter’s fiance gets a wonderful promotion with a paid move to a much more parent friendly state.
Massachusetts is becoming more and more like Sodom and Gomorrah (sp).
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Well said Dominique, and without going through my older posts I believe that the fisting topic was one I covered. I think it involved Obama’s education czar and something that he had written. My post contained very graffic comments that he had made about this subject. It is disgusting what qualifies for sex education in this country nowadays.
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Yes. I can even job your memory because I have been following the story ever since. I was blogging at AUP2 at that time. KEVIN JENNINGS? Ring a bell!
Remember the BOOKS! We were both gob smacked at what was in them!
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Most 8 year olds would use em for balloons…
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TexasFred – That is true, however, the new ‘curriculum’ will be infected with hyper-sexual teaching including homosexual type behavior so our kids may come to a place where they are ‘comfortable’ doing more with the condoms.
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Well, the record is clear – kids are going to have sex, even before they get married.
If you accept this as a fact of life – and I know there are some who believe they can monitor their children closely enough that they can’t have sex – then you have to ask yourself if you want that sex to be unprotected.
If you decide you’d rather they have protected sex, then you have to ask yourself why you’d want to put impediments in their way of getting some protection after you’ve already conceded that kids who want to have sex are going to.
I think a lot of the chatter about elementary schoolkids is deflection, by the way. Texas Fred is right – the majority of kids in elementary school, if given a condom, would inflate it.
But most elementary schools have a handful of sixth-graders who are twelve or even thirteen years old – and these kids are certainly capable of having sex.
I think you’re whistling past the graveyard if you think that requiring kids to sit through a lecture in order to get “protection” is going to dissuade them from having sex; it’s only going to dissuade them from having protected sex.
All that having been said, I agree that this poses rather a conundrum – do we teach our children how to use a condom, and if so, when? Does teaching how to use a condom endorse premarital sex? I know many people think it does, but if you stop and think about it, we teach children all sorts of things for safety’s sake without necessarily endorsing something one way or another.
Of the parents here with boys – when did you teach your son how to use a condom?
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All that providing condoms does is make it easier for children to have sex who might otherwise think twice about it for fear of disease or pregnancy. If these people want to have sex they should do what every other teanager in generations passed have done. Go to the store and buy the condomes, if they can’t muster the courage to do sa perhaps they will abstain. All I am asking for is that we do not make it easier for them to become sexually active. Children grow up way too fast these days, we do not need to help them grow up even faster.
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Yes. And you are forgetting that Kevin Jennings, the new school safety czar (my a**) wants to sexualize our kids. None of this is done without purpose and that purpose is to force children into sexual relationships of any kind WAY before they are mentally, physically or emotionally ready.
There is also an effort underfoot to make all this perverted sex – hyper sex – NORMAL to kids.
As far as abstinence, that is a moral stance. That has no business being decided in the schools or by the schools.
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I think that’s your opinion only, Steve. Statistics seem to show, if I recall correctly, that more kids are having unprotected sex, reversing a trend that was slowly being established. And more high-school age kids don’t see a real problem with teen pregnancy.
The problem with abstinence education, which another poster raised, is that it doesn’t really work. (And I have a close friend who operates one of the few abstinence education programs that seems to work.) Again, there’s research bearing this out. For every child brought up in a truly loving household who’s taught to value the gift of his or her love and hold on to it for someone truly special, there are hundreds who are getting whatever sex education they get at home in a “do as I say, not as I do” package. I mean, look at the divorce stats, and look especially where they’re highest.
Before demagoguing about a fourth-grader having sex, perhaps we should be wondering why a kid old enough to have sex is still in the fourth grade. That sounds to me like a failure of school and parents together in most cases (and yeah, my earlier example of the 12- or 13-year old in 6th grade falls into that category as well).
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Come on – going to the school guidance counselor will likely require the same level of courage as going to the drugstore – the condoms still have to be requested, and usually from someone you feel has no business knowing what you’re about to do!
I share the belief of many here that sexuality is just too highly emphasized in our culture, and our children are unfortunately denied the innocence even some of us were able to enjoy in adolescence.
But what does it say about us that some of us are talking about hoping that kids will refrain from having sex because of fears of disease or pregnancy? I personally know kids who refrain from having sex because they want it to be a truly enjoyable experience with their spouse – these kids believe that they’re worth waiting for, and they believe that because their folks taught it to them while they were growing up.
Have a great weekend!
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Besides the obvious unconstitutional problems of stepping between the parent and child in regards to sex education, hasnt anybody thought about the disturbing idea of a child, say, a 4th grader having sex? Wouldnt the question of possible child abuse come up? What a backwards world we have become, where good is called evil and evil is called good!
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Great point, we seem to ne forgetting that it is illegal for minors to have sex in the first place.
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I’m glad you brought this up! You are right! I have to be honest and say I wonder how much longer it will be illegal. Yikes.
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yeah why are they receiving condoms if it is considered statutory rape for a person under 16 to have sex? That’s like giving a minor a pack of cigarettes. Both which can lead to death by illness. Both which can ruin your finances and your life.
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It really doesn’t make any sense, they are promoting illegal behavior.
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I hate to mention this, but it is not illegal for minors to have sex with each other… it is illegal for adults to have sex with minors.
To me, it sounds like this school has two schools in it: the high school and the elementary school. That means the elementary school probably has kids from kindergarten to either 8th or 9th grade…. with those last few grades being perfectly capable of having sex.
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And one more thing, REGARDLESS of the mentality of “they will do it anyway”, condoms give a false sense of security. They have not lowered the spread of teen pregnancies or STD’s. Saying a child is going to do it anyway so condoms should be readily available is like saying, kids will eat junk food anyway so we may as well put snack machines in the hallways! The crazy thing is, most schools would be more upset about junk food machines than they would be about free condom machines. What a backwards world!
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We do live in a backward world. Great point!
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Actually, saying a child will do it anyway, is refusing to give that child the confidence to take a stand and say no. Children can learn to form a moral code and live by it. However, parents must be afforded the right and the opportunity to instill that belief system.
Some might still have sex. But it is some when the standard is raised. Without a standard, most of them will!
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It sounds to me as if you’re saying that the school board’s action is undermining the attempts of the parents who are trying to instill a good moral foundation in their kids. I don’t think this is the case – those kids are pretty much immune from corrupting influence. the problem is, there aren’t that many of them. The majority are, as I said, going to go ahead and have sex anyway – the moral foundation that permits them to make that decision was made long ago, instilled in them by their parents.
I agree that condoms are not 100% successful in preventing either disease or pregnancy, but I’d rather a child – even my own daughter – be working with an 85% probability of success than a 0% probability.
The most disturbing thing about this legislation, frankly, is the provision that parents cannot opt their children out of the program. I think that if the law is challenged, that provision will be struck down.
Have a wonderful weekend and may God bless us all!
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Yes this law does undermine the will of the parents, that is exactly what I am saying. You even mentioned it yourself. The school is not going to honor a parent request that their child not be given condoms, if that is not undermining the parent’s rights I don’t know what is.
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Dom-
You have a really good point. Saying that they will just do it anyways is just allowing it to happen. Give your children the self confidence, morals, and education to choose to say no.
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So true Bee!
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Simply amazing! I’m not sure where to start! Let’s see, usurp parental authority, openly provide condoms to students who don’t even have a clue as to what a condom is, don’t have a discussion (with a counselor) and having the condom is better than not having it? We must think our children are as dumb as we are! Oh yea, we’re the ones who are teaching them this nonsense!
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This can be stopped EASILY!
EPIC – WATER BALLOON – FIGHT!!!
After this it will require an act of congress to get a condom.
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Elementary school kids are what 5-10? What use could they possibly be getting out of these condoms. This is disgusting. Get rid of this liberal hippy crap. Kids who haven’t hit puberty being handed condoms, why? And yes sex education should start earlier, and both abstinence and condoms should be discussed, but this should not be happening in this manner.
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It is unbelievable that these people refuse to even mention abstinence in school,certainly that should be part of the education.
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I hear a lot of chatter about abstinence – what are the stats on how effective it is?
And I know I mentioned earlier that not all kids have a loving household within which they can nurture their sense of worth and have their determiantion to abstain reinforced. But isn’t it also the case that even in households where there is that level of support and love, kids are going to turn their back on abstinence teaching anyway?
So if an adolescent decides to ignore the abstinence teachings, what’s our choice? Send them out with a pat on the back and a hearty “good luck?”
Look, I know it’s a contentious issue for many, but one of the things I object to is the knee-jerk reaction some folks resort to. For example, elementary school starts with five-year-olds in kindergarten, so after seven years they’re twelve. Some kids really do get left back, and so some sixth-graders are thirteen or even fourteen. So while some folks are up in arms over kids in elementary school getting sex ed and being provided condoms, others are seeing adolescents with a normal libido getting those things.
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I think abstinence works 100% of the time it is tried. 🙂 I just don’t honestly see where this should be something that the school is even involved in.
I understand your point about how not every child is getting the proper nurturing at home, but when the school states that they will not honor a parent’s request that their child not receive condomes aren’t they going against the will of the parents who have taken an active role in their child’s life and are trying to raise them the right way?
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As I mentioned above, I’m pretty sure that there are only two schools involved in this: The high school and elementary school, which means there is no middle school. In that case, the elementary school kids could be up to the ages of 14 or 15. That is why this is actually a decent policy.
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ladyelaine is correct. There are only 2 schools in Provincetown. Not only that, combined they educate a grand total of approximately 250 students. The posting is also misleading because it does not report the entire aspect of the ruling. Not only do the students have to go see the nurse, but they must also speak with the guidance counselor before receiving said condoms to make sure that the student understands all the pros and cons as well as the known risks.
Finally, despite all the comments, Massachusetts is FAR from the Sodom and Gomorrah left wing liberal pariah that you suggest. Not only did we elect a moderate conservative as our Senator, our previous Governor was a Republican. And besides, even WITH gay marriage, we have the lowest divorce rates in the country.
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I mentioned that the students need to talk to a nurse, I was writing about those in the school committee who wanted this policy to be even more liberal by not requiring a nurse visit. What difference does the amount of people that this policy affect matter?
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Abstinence may work 100% of the time it’s tried, but I wouldn’t want to bet the ranch on normal healthy teenagers always deciding to try abstinence.
As to the school board’s decision not to give parents the right to opt their children out of the program, I already said that I’m disturbed by that, and if the law is challenged, I think that portion is very vulnerable.
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Agreed! I was just having a little fun with you on the abstinence aspect. I was young once and I know first hand how it is to be a teenager with hormones flowing. But maybe if a teenager has to go to the drug store and buy the condoms on his own in front of other people it will dissuade him more than if he can privately go to the school nurse. Teenagers have dealt with this for as long as there have been teenagers, we don’t need to make it easier for them.
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Well, I agree with this policy. It terminates parental rights and gives the government a chance to give more abortions in the future. Don’t you just love the radical left?
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Not so sure about that – when I was that age, I found a pharmacy where nobody knew me – not too hard. If I’d had to see the school nurse – someone who knew my mom – it would have made it a lot tougher for me!
Hope Fathers’ Day was great!
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If everyone who disagrees with something their elected officials do would get out and vote; then these idiots who think they know what is best for whatever would stop and think that they were possibly working A TEMPORARY JOB. People need to band together and let their voices be heard. Parents need to bring up their children responsibly. Parents need to act like adults. There is so much more I would like to say, but I don’t want to take up the space. Remember, you do have ways to stop this legally. It is up to every reasonable person to do something.
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So true! People need to get out and take this country back!
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Um, there are lots of people who will say that we started that process in 2006 and sealed the deal in 2008.
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Actually, I find myself saying this over and over and over these days. All of this can be dealt with and resolved with 2 words. Accountability and responsibility!
In addition, I would be furious if I were raising my child to wait till marriage and the school gave them condoms or the counselor had a conversation with them and decided they could needed them. That is MY decision and MINE alone.
I am legally, financially, emotionally, and physically responsible for the well being of my child – not the school – thus this decision should remain mine and mine alone.
What ever have to reading, writing, and arithmetic? Maybe if the schools got back to those subjects, children would now how to read and write when they graduated!
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sorry. meant to type “they needed them”
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Those are two words that are vanishing from today’s society. Without these two words we have chaos as people think they can do whatever they want and they don’t have to worry about the consequences.
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Lets get it on!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Hand out condoms to my ES age children and I will file a suit of monstrous proportions! Are you f’in kidding me! Liberal morons going over the top! Let’s give them a bed, a room, and a how to book you idiots!!!!!
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Yet many of these same people want to sue McDonalds for giving away toys with Happy Meals. Toys=bad, condoms=good.
This is the lunacy we are dealing with!
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