Teachers Saving Children® Inc. of Ohio
Newsletter
Volume 9, Number 6
August 1999
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Editor's Note: Currently Susan Wish is serving in an advisory capacity for the Ohio Family Alliance. From February 1999 to June 1999 she served as the legislative director for the Ohio Family Alliance. Teachers Saving Children® Inc. of Ohio is a member of the Advisory Board for the Ohio Family Alliance.
Who is responsible for our children's health care, parents or government? The answer is obvious. Parents are responsible for their children's health care. If the Education Budget, HB 282, had been approved without State Representative Jim Jordan's amendment, the responsibility would have shifted to the schools from the parents.
Representative Jordan's amendment will not allow money to be spent on line items for Coordinated School Health and the AIDS Education Program until committees hold hearings and a concurrent resolution is passed. The Ohio Department of Health (ODH) and the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) have worked collaboratively to build the infrastructure of coordinated comprehensive school health with Center of Disease Control (CDC) money for many years without authority from the Ohio General Assembly. The only legislative action on comprehensive health was in 1989 when the Ohio General Assembly defeated a K-12 Human Growth and Development program, a mandated comprehensive sex-education health plan. Since then, there has never been a comprehensive program brought before the legislature.
In January 1999, the controlling board authorized funding through June of 1999 for school-based clinics through the Coordinated School Health infrastructure appropriations of $536,437. This seed money from the federal Center of Disease Control (CDC) will grow to be a mini-medical center in each school to serve our children's medical needs if continued funds are appropriated in the budget. The controlling board amended the appropriations to prohibit the funds from being used for topics related to HIV, sexually transmitted diseases, and sex education. Yet the Ohio Department of Education receives grant money from the Center of Disease Control to train trainers to implement the offensive "Programs That Work," which promotes contraceptive sex education. That should cause concern to question the intentions of the coordinated effort of the Ohio Department of Education and the Department of Health to grow this infrastructure. The "PTW" is the basic funding component of the Coordinated School Health.
SIECUS INVOLVMENT Ted Sanders, Superintendent of Ohio Public Instruction from October 1, 1991 to June 30, 1995, received a letter dated June 1994, from SIECUS (Sex Information and Education Council of the U.S.) saying that the Ohio Department of Education had entered into an agreement with the Center of Disease Control (CDC) and the Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH). SIECUS offered to help Ohio on projects which focus and promote comprehensive school health, and include developing individualized summary of each state that will address both HIV/AIDS prevention and sexuality curricula/guidelines as well as the state infrastructure to support the programs. The Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio Department of Health indicate they have "formed a two agency committee" and have "attended infrastructure training" offered by CDC and trained by SEICUS. The Ohio Department of Mental Health also is working collaboratively with the ODE and ODH to strengthen and build upon the Coordinated School Health program in Ohio.
SIECUS was founded at the Kinsey Institute in 1964. It was specifically created to teach and promote the sexual theories of Dr. Alfred Kinsey. SIECUS has advanced sex education programs that reflect the flawed theories of Dr. Kinsey. Practices of Dr. Kinsey have not only been called into question but also for investigation specifically regarding Table 34, the sexual abuse of children in his experimental research.
FUNDING WITH CDC GRANT MONEYS John Goff, Superintendent of Public Instruction from August 11, 1995 to December 31, 1998, in a letter to the CDC, September 1997, entered into an agreement with the CDC "to develop the infrastructure to support all components of a Coordinated School Health program in Ohio." He said, "Ohio has many components of the Coordinated School Health program at the state level, with new staffing, operational plan and INFRASTRUCTURE assessments and training" [emphasis mine]. A total of $1,771,202 has been received from CDC grants.
The components of a Coordinated School Health program are: (1) Family and Community Involvement, (2) School Nutrition, (3) School Health Services, (4) Healthy School Environment, (5) School Counseling, Psychological and Social Services, (6) Physical Education, (7) Comprehensive School Health Education, (8) School-Site Health Promotion for Staff. Component #3, School Health Services, opens the door for school-based clinics and component #7, Comprehensive School Health, includes the use of the offensive CDC funded sex education training currently promoted by the ODE & ODH.
Parents are responsible for their children's health care. If school-based clinics, or mini-medical centers become established in the public schools, the focus has shifted from parents to the government. Schools require permission to give children aspirin. Will the schools require a blanket permission slip to take care of our children's needs? Will the school give gynecological exams to our sixth graders as they did in Pennsylvania? (The girls were not allowed to call their parents; they were forced to have the exam.) Contraception, genital exams, abortion counseling and referral, or sexual orientation counseling do not belong in schools. School-based clinics are a duplication of services. Needy families have local health clinics to use for health care. School-based clinics are an unprecedented invasion into the family domain.
Grant money from the CDC has been used to conduct "professional development" for training of educators. In a letter dated August 11, 1998, Dr. Joyce Brannon, coordinator of the training programs, explained to potential trainers "The Ohio Department of Education has secured funding from the federal government to sponsor awareness and training opportunities for Ohio's communities including schools, parents, churches and other youth serving agencies...within the first fifteen months following the training each master trainer will be required to train a minimum of 20 other community parents or school educators in one or more Programs That Work." Trainer of Educators first training of Responsible Sexuality was held August 17, 1998. The curricula that are CDC approved are "Reducing the Risk: Building Skills to Prevent Pregnancy, STD, and HIV"; "Be Proud! Be Responsible!", and "Becoming a Responsible Teen". These curricula do not promote healthy lifestyles, but they are an endorsement of lifestyles much worse than the recent example revealed by the President of the United States.
Ohio Schools are not mandated to teach sex education. Venereal disease (STD) education is mandated but when HB 189 passed last session, the bill required the VD mandate to emphasize abstinence until marriage. Sexual activity in HB 189 has the same meaning as in Section 2907.01 of the Ohio Revised Code (ORC). [see addendum] The "Programs That Work" curricula that ODE uses for training are contraceptive based and void of any language that teaches the value of waiting till marriage, and refers to partners rather than wife and husband. In essence, the "PTW" do not comply with HB 189.
Ohio parents and legislators should be concerned. The Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio Department of Health are pursuing an agenda without legislative authority and despite legislative directives. The Ohio General Assembly has not authorized an infrastructure for Coordinated School Health, yet the ODE and ODH have been setting the stage for many years. The "Programs That Work" CDC curricula have proven to be offensive, sexually explicit, and promoting of homosexuality. They do not emphasize abstinence till marriage, and have no mention of husband or wife, only partners.
Ohio Revised Code Section 2907.01
A. "Sexual Conduct" means vaginal intercourse between a male and female, anal intercourse, fellatio, and cunnilingus between persons regardless of sex. Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete vaginal or anal intercourse.
B. "Sexual contact" means any touching of an erogenous zone of another, including without limitation the thigh, genital, buttock, pubic region, or, if the person is a female, a breast, for the purpose of sexually arousing or gratifying either person.
C. "Sexual activity" means sexual conduct or sexual contact, or both.
Since April 1996, Teachers Saving Children® has kept its members informed with periodic updates regarding the Ohio Model Health Curriculum. The above article has shared a different perspective of the concerns regarding the curriculum that the Ohio Department of Education is attempting to mandate.
It is crucial for everyone - absolutely everyone to get involved in stopping this horrendous curriculum that could be placed into our schools within a very short period of time. The information regarding where in the process and the final actions of the General Assembly, the Ohio Department of Education, and the State Board of Education changes regularly. By the time you receive this newsletter the information could be different and/or the process could be at a different level, so consider the following recommended actions:
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