Sex Education for Middle and High School Students: Hawaii Public Schools Adds New Sex Ed Policy

As of 2015, numbers of students in Hawaii that are not aware of sexually transmitted diseases are incredibly rising. Pupils who know HIV and AIDS inside the school premises fall to a two-decade low, according to a Hawaii Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

According to Civil Beat News, compared to 1999, there is about 85.7 percentage dropped of middle school students who learned STDs in the public schools with only 44 percent last year. In the same year, the high school students sink 90.6 percent with just 75.6 who has proper knowledge of sex education.

Expected Change From Sex Education

The said numbers are expected to be changed in as the Board of Education decided to oblige every school to teach thorough and medically-accurate sex education. The Sexual Health Education Policy 103.5 is now added with HIV awareness and changed the BOE rule from "Abstinence-based Education Policy."

The new rule is still waiting to include education on abstinence in sex education as an addition to the use of contraception and safe sex policies. However, it is not yet known how many schools are going to follow the new mandate.

"We have the policy in place. Now we have to get to the logistics of how to make that happen in every school," Judith Clark, executive director of Hawaii Youth Services Network, told Civil Beat when the new rule passed. Sex education is already known to be included in the curriculum but, the U.S. schools are still having a hard time to implement the said policy, as per Parent Herald.

Middle and High School Students Remain Unaware

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found out a lot of students still don't have the proper knowledge regarding sexually transmitted diseases like HIV and AIDS. There are only a small number of middle and high school pupils that have been taught of sex education topics.

Hence, experts are encouraging every teacher to teach students everything about sex education and sex awareness. "We need to do a better job of giving our young people the skills and knowledge they need to protect their own health," CDC National Center for HIV/AIDS director Dr. Jonathan Mermin said.

What do you think of the new sex education mandate? Share your thoughts below.