March 10, 2008 06:09 am The stunning news that at least 10 Gloucester High School students have become pregnant this school year — up from the norm of about 3, according to school officials — should set off a number of alarms in the community, particularly considering that it seems a number of the girls have done so intentionally. And the news may well put added pressure on school and community officials to respond to the problem. But while the school may be able to take some steps by expanding its sex-education or health curriculum, the truth is, this is a communitywide issue that requires stepped-up attention from city health officials, counselors and — most of all — parents. Indeed, Gloucester High Principal Joseph Sullivan and Superintendent Christopher Farmer deserve credit for openly raising and discussing a local and social concern that will require a communitywide response through education and especially communication. The most jarring aspect of the Gloucester High figures is the word that at least some of the girls who have become pregnant have done so of their own choice. And while we tend to doubt many cases in which people blame "Hollywood" or the media when a young person carries out some act of violence, perhaps mirroring a wayward TV show or video game, it makes a frightening amount of sense to hear Sullivan suggest that a part of GHS's problem stems from the Hollywood or celebrity culture in which magazines and TV "entertainment" shows glamorize single and teen moms — like Britney Spears' 16-year-old sister Jamie Lynn, herself a "star" on Nickelodeon, a network aimed at young viewers. Those aren't "role models" kids see and learn about in school. Let's face it: School officials have students under their wings for little more than six hours a day — and those can't realistically be the hours in which these kids are having sex. So what can parents do? Ban their high school students from checking out teen magazines, or watching the likes of "Access Hollywood?" Of course not. For one thing, it's important to remember that — if celebrity culture can be viewed as a factor in this — it's only one of many. Parents can, however, follow the advice of Patricia Quinn, the executive director of the nonprofit Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy, who says parental squeamishness and reluctance to talk with their children about sex and the real-world impact of teen pregnancy is another big part of the problem. Community health officials must also find a more realistic means of providing teens with birth control than they do today. The closest clinic for students to access birth control is in Beverly — assuming they'd be understandably reluctant to go to the family doctor. Dr. Joanne Cox, director of the Young Parents program at Children's Hospital in Boston, says this may also be a good time for Gloucester to consider dispensing birth control at the high school itself. But Sullivan is probably right to concede the community won't "tolerate" that — and even if it did, it's also frankly hard to imagine that students would feel comfortable getting birth control from the school nurse's office. Gloucester is not alone in dealing with this issue. State and national figures show increases in teen birth rates for the first time in 15 years. And while those most recent figures are two years old, there are signs, Quinn says, that there is a growing number of pregnant girls in high schools across the state. The Gloucester School Committee should indeed take a fresh look at its sex-education and high school health curriculums. The fact that sex education is part of a mandated health class in ninth grade — and stops after that — is troubling, especially given that a survey suggests that students who say they have had sex rises to 68 percent by senior year, while the use of birth control declines from 73 percent of those who've had sex by ninth grade to a low of 59 percent of the seniors. Those figures — even if the survey numbers may be exaggerated, and some national studies suggest they often are — raise some red flags of their own. But, overall, it's also up to health officials, parents and others to, above all, drive home the awareness of how teen and particularly high school pregnancy affects lives — for the mother, the father, the baby, family members, and more. And, especially in these days of celebrity culture, it's up to everyone to drive home the point that being a high school-age mom isn't cool — and that getting pregnant at 15 or 16 really isn't OK. That's a message that all of us — as a community — should do our best to convey.
—
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.