North Dakota Public Schools Contracting With Planned Parenthood For Sex Education Seminar

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Written By:
Rob Port

Mar 26, 2011
6:00am

This isn’t going to sit well with a lot of the taxpayers, I think:

The Department of Public Instruction wants to keep clear of any “values” teaching on sexual education, leaving the choices on curriculum and content up to local school districts, according to DPI Health Education Coordinator Sandra Tibke in a recent interview with PlainsDaily. According to Tibke, her job is to “provide solid health facts and materials” and nothing more.

Tibke’s stated DPI position appears to contradict the upcoming, 2 day free conference DPI is sponsoring in partnership with a Minnesota Planned Parenthood chapter in May. Planned Parenthood is widely recognized for its political activism in promoting abortion rights for women and distribution of birth control in schools. ND is the only state which does not have a Planned Parenthood chapter.

In addition, the conference’s keynote speaker is Kurt Conklin, School Health Project Coordinator at SIECUS (Informtion and Education Council of the US). SEICUS materials state that one of its primary purposes is to “work to create a world that ensures social justice and sexual rights,” and believes that sex education “should recognize the diversity and beliefs represented in the community, and complement and augment the sexuality education children receive from their families, religious groups and communities.”

Asked about the apparent conflict of interest, Tibke said that her job is “to simply deliver factual information regarding sexual health” to ND state. Tibke added while she may not agree with everything Planned Parenthood does, they do have “really good materials” on helping families communicate, and that she prefers to find common ground and work with non-profits from there. …

Tibke defended her department’s choice of speakers and sponsors for the teacher training conference by saying that her department receives an annual grant from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to promote HIV education, and receipt of the grant funds depends upon increasing percentages of state teachers reporting they have received the information. Conklin’s organization has a formal agreement with the CDC to provide school training.

Other conference speakers include Planned Parenthood award winner Nora Gelperin, M.Ed., who oversees Answer’s Sexuality Education Training Initiative, and Minnesota Department of Education trainer Geri Graham, MS, CDCP, who was a health and physical education teacher for 30 years.

“There’s nothing controversial about the conference materials,” insists Tibke. But one conference’s stated objectives is learning to “Identify components of safe, supportive, school environments inclusive of Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender and Questioning students and family members.”

“These things are going on in our schools,” said Tibke, “and while we would prefer abstinence, we need to recognize that not everyone is practicing that, and they need good information so they can be protected.” In the latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 27.9% of ND 9th graders and 59.8% of 12th graders report having engaged in sexual intercourse.

Setting aside the question of whether or not schools really have any place in broaching a subject as sensitive and controversial as sex education, there surely must be organizations offering this kind of training that are less controversial than abortion industry giant Planned Parenthood.

Aside from raking in millions from its abortion business, Planned Parenthood has actively supported laws allowing children to get abortions without their parent’s knowledge up to and including laws protecting adults who transport children across state lines to get abortions. Now this same group is going to be spreading its message to our state’s teachers, and collect our tax dollars along the way?

This is a rather poor choice by the DPI.

This is also yet another indication of just how thoroughly the federal government has permeated our education system. A decision as controversial as this one should have been a local decisions. And to a certain degree perhaps it was, except that the decision was heavily influenced by federal funding.

That’s how the federal government undermines local control. They dangle tax dollars in front of local officials, and the local officials jump through hoops to get them.

Meanwhile, we’ve got a record-setting $1.6 trillion budget deficit this year and our federal government is closing in on $15 trillion in debt. Maybe it’s time the federal government left sex education up to local officials.

And speaking of local officials, I think Superintendent Wayne Sanstead needs to hear how North Dakotans feel about a group like Planned Parenthood getting our tax dollars to espouse its controversial pro-abortion ideology in our schools. Use the form below to send an email to Sanstead and tell him you don’t want Planned Parenthood having anything to do with our schools.

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