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The Student Newspaper of Algonquin Regional High School
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79 Bartlett Street, Northborough MA 01532
arhsharbinger.com
HARBINGER FEBRUARY 2018
.
VOL. 30 NO.3
41%
of Algonquin students are sexually active.
26%
of sexually active Algonquin students don’t regularly use protection.
Why are students ignoring what they learn in sex-ed?
photo illustration Paige morse and cassidy wang
UNPROTECTED
ulia* is a sexually active senior who often uses no protection while having sex, despite having access to birth control. She was “always on the pill, but I never actually took the pill every day.”
J
According to a Harbinger survey of 274 students from January 7 to 14 through Google Forms, Julia is not alone. 41 percent of Algonquin students have ever had sex, and of those students, 26 percent use no protection regularly. Algonquin students who responded to the survey are in line with the national average. In 2015, 41 percent of high schoolers had ever had sexual intercourse according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Algonquin offers a month-long sex education program as a part of the Sophomore Health and Fitness curriculum. The program encourages abstinence and warns about the dangers of unprotected sex, aiming to prepare students for real-life situations. Principal Dr. Sara Pragluski Walsh remarked, “Not all schools teach it, and I commend Algonquin for teaching it.”
Sex Education
According to Sophomore Health and Fitness teacher Melissa Arvanigian, the sex education unit begins with addressing what a healthy relationship looks like compared with an unhealthy relationship. Then, students review the male and female anatomy, since most learned it in freshman biology class. From there, Arvanigian and Sophomore Health and Fitness teacher Alison Robidoux discuss pregnancy from conception to delivery. Contraception is discussed after pregnancy, according to Arvanigian. The health teachers go over the many forms of birth control to promote safe sex if stu-
dents choose to be sexually active, no matter what their sexual preference is. “Whether you are heterosexual or have same sex relationships, it doesn’t matter,” Arvanigian said. “The only time I talk more traditional when it comes to sexual preference is because of pregnancy, since that is typically male and female.” Bennett* is a sexually active student who has engaged in same-sex intercourse. He feels that the sex education curriculum touches on safe same-sex relationships, but could spend more time on the topic. “They did [discuss safe same-sex relationships], but it felt kind of rushed,” Bennett said. “Out of what we learned if we were ever in that situation, I think [the curriculum] was pretty good.” Last semester, Arvanigian invited seniors Tessa DesMarais and Taylor Murphy to present a project they created in Science Innovations class to the health students. They informed students about the LGBT+ community, cleared up misconceptions and shared resources with them. “We try to make [sex education applicable] for everybody, not just for a certain type of student,” Arvanigian said. Arvanigian stressed that Algonquin’s Physical Education department promotes abstinence as the most effective form of birth control and protection against sexually transmitted diseases. “We definitely speak about abstinence because that is the only one hundred percent way of protecting yourself not only from pregnancy but from sexually transmitted diseases,” Arvanigian said. “If people are choosing to be sexually active, the second most effective [form of protection] is condoms because that is the only contraception that protects everybody from STDs and pregnancy.” Dave* is a senior and one of Arvanigian’s former sophomore health and fitness students. He has never had sex, but he thinks Algonquin has a strong sex education program compared with other schools.
“The sex education program is good at Algonquin,” Dave said. “Ms. A does a great job.” An anonymous respondee to the Harbinger survey praised the health department for teaching about different forms of contraception and felt that the teachers did not promote abstinence too heavily. “I appreciate the fact that we don’t push abstinence or anything like that,” the respondee wrote. “Sex and sex ed aren’t about religion; they’re about staying safe, and that is something I find very important. [The class is] comfortable, [and the] health teachers do a good job.” Walsh believes that the sex education program at Algonquin has remained strong because of the collaboration that exists between departments across the building. “The physical education department is always talking to the guidance department, and they’re always talking to the adjustment counselors, ‘What can we weave in?’” Walsh said. “They’ve been talking to me, ‘What does our data say? How do we support this?’ They talk to the nurses, ‘What else can we do?’ That network of connections strengthens the things that we are doing really well and helps us backfill any weaknesses.”
Contraception Use
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 30 percent of high schoolers in the United States had had sexual intercourse during the previous three months. Of these students, 43 percent did not use a condom the last time they had sex and 14 percent did not use any method to prevent pregnancy. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance found that the amount of high school students not using any protection has decreased since the 1990s. According to the Harbinger survey, Algonquin has a higher rate of unprotected sex than the U.S. average, sitting 12 percent above the
By Paige Morse
Editor-in-Chief
country. At Algonquin, 18 percent of sexually active females have taken emergency contraception (Plan B) at some point in their life. Senior Mia* does not use any form of contraception when having sex with her boyfriend. Because of this, she has taken emergency contraception before. “Personally I don’t use protection,” Mia said. “I don’t like the feeling of it, and you’re in the moment and it just kind of happens. Also, I feel embarrassed to go and buy [condoms].” Julia traces her lack of protection use back to her two previous sexual relationships, where she felt that using a condom would place a burden on the boys she had been with. “I think it was just that I didn’t have any respect for myself, and they just didn’t take the initiative,” Julia said. “They didn’t want to go get it. I didn’t want to ask… I didn’t want to have to have them buy them.” Arvanigian believes the reason behind some students failing to use protection could be attributed to a long-standing attitude that bad things will never happen to them. “[Teenagers have the] ‘It’s not going to happen to me, I’m invincible,’ mentality, and it’s been like that for a long time,” Arvanigian said. “With the immaturity of the teenage brain, it is what it is.” According to Arvanigian, students should be having conversations with their partners about contraception before engaging in sexual activities. “If you’re mature enough to be in a relationship with somebody, and you’re mature enough to possibly think about being sexually active, then you should be mature enough to have these open conversations with people in regards to methods that would be beneficial to both of you to keep you and your partner safe,” Arvanigian said.
Sex-Ed, page 15