Mayor Adrian Fenty on Comprehensive Sex Education

Mayor Fenty spoke last night at a meeting of the Gertrude Stein Democrats. I had six questions for Mayor Fenty, but only time to ask one. I decided on comprehensive sex education with a two part question. First: Is the Mayor ready to reject the abstinence-only-until marriage federal funding that the District currently accepts? Second: What will the Mayor do to make sure that DC schools are providing comprehensive sex education? As you may know, a broad coalition of youth-serving organizations have written a letter asking Mayor Fenty to reject the abstinence-only-until-marriage federal funding. There are many reasons to reject this money, probably the most significant one being that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs simply don't work. Further, the federal funds require a local match, requiring us to spend our own local money on a program that we know doesn't make sense. The broad coalition of organizations that worked on this include: the letter include DC Fights Back, City Year Washington DC, DC Primary Care Association, Girls Incorporated of the Washington DC Metropolitan Area, The Latin American Youth Center, Metro TeenAIDS, Sasha Bruce Youth Work, Young Womens Project, and Youth Action Research Group. To see the complete list read the letter. Unfortunately, Adrian Fenty did not say he would follow the recommendation of these organizations and reject abstinence-only-until-marriage money. He did commit, however to looking into the issue. On the second part of the question, Mayor Fenty said (and I quote) "The District of Columbia should have the leading comprehensive sex education program in the country". This quote is encouraging. The state of comprehensive sex education in the District is not. Don't get me wrong. There are some great programs out there like the City Year Project Hope Team, which plans to double their size next year. City Year is not welcome in every school, however. We know many schools in DC shut the door to Project Hope and to other medically accurate comprehensive sex education programs. This has got to change. The good news though, is that Adrian Fenty agreed to have a sit-down meeting to discuss these issues, which is a start. I hope that several of the organizations listed above will be able to participate. If your organization has not reached out to the Mayor's office on this issue, I encourage you to do so now.