Castrating sex ed

Budget cuts will directly affect the student experience

By Noah Bruce

CHUCK MORRISON: “We pave the way for kids to feel safe enough to tell somebody.”

Lisa Belanger, coordinator for Portland’s six school-based health centers, told a frightening story to the Portland School Committee May 9. “I recall one student who did not attend [Portland’s sex-ed] program. She came to me asking if she was a virgin. It turned out she was pregnant and had two STDs.” Belanger is worried that cutting Portland’s sex-ed program will lead to more stories like this one.

Suffice it to say, it’s been a rough start for Portland’s new superintendent of schools. In the first year of her tenure, Mary Jo O’Connor finds herself in the unenviable position of having to trim $1.7 million from the school’s budget, and no matter which cuts she recommends, someone will suffer.

“In my first year, this is my worst nightmare,” she says. “Layoffs haven’t been done in six to 10 years. It’s been trial by fire.”

In order to produce a budget City Council will approve, the School Committee has already made significant cuts on O’Connor’s recommendation. Slashed positions include 17.5 educational techs, one home-ec teacher, four special-ed teachers, one gifted and talented teacher, three bus drivers, and three custodians. O’Connor and the School Committee have so far avoided firing anyone, choosing instead to make reductions in positions that either have, or are expected to have, vacancies. But this is not to say that the cuts will not affect Portland’s students, as the School Committee heard at its meeting on May 9.

Maryanne Scally, president of the Educational Technicians Association spelled out what the loss of ed techs would mean to the students. “The loss of hours for these 17.5 positions to the students” she said, “is 21,437 and one half hours of individual and small group instruction . . .[It] seems like a short term solution to a long term problem.”

Al Higgins, president of the Education Support Personnel Group, a bargaining organization, explained that in the past few years there has been an increase in the use of school facilities without a corresponding increase in maintenance personnel. “To keep reducing staff,” he said “is going to affect the maintenance of our facilities and the safety of our students.”

But the real controversy surrounds reductions the committee will vote on at their meeting on Wednesday May 16. In addition to three elementary teacher positions, O’Connor has recommended eliminating two of Portland’s three sex educators.

Speaking about the potential sex-ed cut at the meeting May 9, Leslie Champagne, a member of the Family Living and Human Sexuality Advisory Board which works in conjunction with Portland’s sex educators, said “Cutting a sex-ed position would be a disservice to our entire community.”

Her point appears valid.

Portland’s sex-education program, officially dubbed Family Living and Human Sexuality (and shortened to Family Living in the elementary schools), goes way beyond the biological basics of the sperm meeting the egg. The award-winning curriculum includes vital life-skills topics such as the effects of teenage pregnancy, preventing HIV and other STDs, building self-esteem, avoiding relationship violence, and the components of a healthy relationship.

Perhaps most vital is the sexual-abuse education. This topic is first covered in the fourth grade, and according to Chuck Morrison, one of the sex educators, leads to about 30 students per year revealing a history of abuse and seeking help from sex educators. The potential loss of this component is particularly alarming.

“When you have a program that talks about any of this stuff, the air has been cleared,” he says. “The kids have been given permission to talk about it and you’re going to hear about it . . . In a school system that doesn’t have a sexuality program it’s handled on a one-on-one basis when a kid feels strongly enough or has been neglected badly enough that they can courageously and anonymously go to a guidance counselor. When you have a sexuality program a lot more comes out and a lot more happens. We pave the way for kids to feel safe enough to tell somebody.”

By bringing speakers into the classroom, Portland’s sex educators bring these topics to life. To drive home the realities of teenage pregnancy, educators bring teenage mothers into the classroom to speak about their experiences. To teach students about gay issues, Portland’s sex educators collaborate with Maine Outright, an advocacy group for young gay people, to bring gay and bisexual speakers into the classroom.

According to Kristin Moores, who spoke at the meeting on May 9, this presentation in her freshmen year at Deering High had an important and direct effect on her life. “I know that Outright being there made it a lot safer for me in my senior year when I came out as a lesbian. If Outright hadn’t spoken to my entire class when we were freshmen, probably like many of my friends I would have been put in lockers, shoved down stairs, bruised and beaten . . . If a position is cut, we’re going to have kids who aren’t learning what they should be learning and aren’t being kept safe.”

Tami Eldridge, executive director of Maine Outright agrees that education provides a safer environment for young people who are gay or questioning their sexuality. “People are afraid of what they don’t understand,” she explains. “Young people don’t understand how hurtful ‘faggot’ and ‘queer’ and ‘dyke’ are. When people talk about their experience and how it was when they got called these names it makes a big difference in what the school environment is.”

Portland’s curriculum is an abstinence-based program, taught to grades four, five, six, eight, and nine and last year won an award from the state’s family planning office as a model school program. The approach to sex ed differs from that in most school districts across the country where sex ed is taught by teachers who do not specialize in the subject. Morrison says that the specialization of Portland’s sex-ed teachers ensures that they are comfortable with controversial and potentially embarrassing topics. “You develop people who are more comfortable with the subjects and more trained in the field,” he says.

Martha Kempner, education coordinator for the Sexuality Information and Education Counsel of the US (Siecus) echoes Morrison’s belief that sex ed is best taught by trained specialists. “One of things research has shown us,” she says “is that family living and sexuality education needs to be taught by properly trained professionals. . . If the teacher is not comfortable with the topic then students will not be comfortable as well.”

So, if sex ed in Portland is so good, why cut it?

The short answer is that Portland’s school system is receiving less money from the state than it did in the past due to declining enrollment — there were 150 less students this year than last — and rising property values in the city. The state’s school funding formula penalizes service center economies like Lewiston, Bangor, and Portland by basing much of the aid on property values. In addition to high property values, these cities invariably have many buildings owned by non-profit or governmental entities who pay no taxes to the municipality. “Someone is always swearing about the funding formula,” notes chair of the City Council’s finance committee, James Cloutier, who with the rest of the council approves the school budget’s bottom line.

School Committee member Jonathan Radtke notes that several years ago, the state promised to fund 55 percent of education costs in Maine, but has never paid more than 20 percent. The city’s coffers are responsible for the rest. The only way the city can increase revenues is to hike the property tax, an unpopular option.

To keep all its programs intact, the School Committee would have had to have asked City Council to raise property taxes by $1.35 per $1000 of property. O’Connor explains that the school board and the city council have “been having meetings on this since the fall,” so the School Committee had a good idea what the city council would and would not accept. The committee was fully aware that a $1.35 raise was simply not an option. At their meeting May 9, the committee agreed to cut the budget to reduce the hike to $.88 in hopes that the City Council would approve.

According to Cloutier, the finance committee unanimously agreed to accept the $.88 increase at its last meeting. This means chances are good City Council will also accept the $.88 hike when it discusses the issue on May 21.

However, leading up to their May 16 meeting (after the Phoenix went to press) it is still unclear how the School Committee could get to $.88. Every cent of property tax equals $38,000 in the school budget. So far, the School Committee has shaved enough to get close to $.98, but they still have more than $.10 or $380,000 to go. The question remains: Will the sex-ed program survive?

According to O’Connor, there just isn’t much choice. “It’s not that sex ed is not a valuable program,” she says. O’Connor explains that in order to trim the budget they started with “a list of don’t touch these things,” and unfortunately sex ed and the other cuts, though important, were not within this core group and were marked for cutting by “forced choice analysis.”

There are those on the school committee who disagree with O’Connor and contend that sex ed should be protected. Radtke believes cuts should come from what he calls “the outer circle,” meaning extra-curricular activities like sports, drama, and chess club, before targeting sex ed, which he believes is second only to the academic subjects.

Radtke also believes it is better to do away with some programs entirely rather “than stretch all the programs district wide.”

With only three teachers to begin with, Morrison says Portland’s sex-ed program doesn’t have much room for stretching. “I would argue that one position is gutting it. That’s a 30 percent reduction. Certainly, two positions and the thing’s completely hamstrung.”

He says eliminating one teacher would cripple the program and removing two “would amount to gutting it completely.”

Michelle Hedrich, who is also on the School Committee, agrees with Radtke that sex ed should stay. “I think sex ed is essential,” she says. “I don’t want it to go at all. Nothing is a luxury, but I would rather cut foreign languages or all-day kindergarten. But, studies have shown that all-day kindergarten can save us money down the road by dealing with problems early on.” Currently Portland has all-day kindergarten in four of its 12 elementary schools.

Board member Kim Matthews expressed her reluctance to cut sex ed at the School Committee meeting May 9 and questioned whether the budget for sports teams could be cut instead. “I’m most concerned about sex education,” she said, “because it goes to all students in the district. I think it should be left in the budget . . . I would like to look in the sports departments to make up that money.”

Dana Allen, director of elementary/secondary education, however, explained that the sports teams are already “operating on a bare-bones budget.” He said that each school has already cut five percent from its sports budget and, further, these budgets have remained flat over the last decade while fixed costs like referees and dues fees have increased. Therefore, he explained, sports equipment budgets have effectively been cut.

Illustrating his point, he said, “At one of our middle schools, the females on one team at the end of their game give their shirts to the next team that goes on the field.”

Some sex-ed supporters, like Amanda Roe, Portland’s school nurse coordinator, believes City Council should be less reluctant to raise taxes in order to preserve school programs. “I think that the city council needs to listen to parents,” she says. “As I listen to parents, I hear that they are willing to have their taxes raised some in order to maintain the quality we have in schools, and I think the city council needs to listen to that.”

But Cloutier says that financially speaking, cutting sex ed is only a drop in the bucket. “We’re talking about less that $100,000 in a $75 million budget,” he says. (note: each sex-ed teacher costs $60,000, with benefits)

Though he would not go into detail, citing laws against discussing budget specifics, Cloutier did indicate that the school system has some large problems inherent in its budget. “I think they have some structural cost issues they will have to consider as time goes by . . . They have between seven and eight percent inflation built into their budget.”

Cloutier points out that if City Council accepts the $.88 property tax hike, the school board will be receiving a record $3.5 million more from the property tax than it did last year, a year when it had received $2.7 million more than it had the year before.

A perusal of the school’s budget does raise some questions, most notably: Why do costs continue to rise as the number of students drop? According to an April 11, 2001 copy of the budget, between the 99-00 and 00-01 school years, Portland schools lost 150 students, yet the budget for the 00-01 staff salaries is set to increase by 3.1 percent, or $1.5 million.

According to Randy Stewart, business manager for Portland schools, prices are increasing due to a variety of reasons. “For one thing prices are going up,” he says. “The price of oil went up 60 percent. Electricity is going up. The cost of supplies and salaries are going up. Usually, costs go up in line with inflation. Inflation is running a little less than three percent. Over the years we’ve had programs added to curriculum, like foreign languages.”

O’Connor also cites the rising diversity of needs of Portland’s students. “Our students have many, many different needs. They come with special education needs, they come with exceptionally gifted needs, and they come with needs to learn English. . . Yes our population is declining, but we need the support and structures so necessary to allow all students to learn.”

Stewart adds that the School Committee and City Council are currently looking at plans to potentially close some of the elementary schools in order to cut costs. However, this is a fiery political issue, and in any case, is several years off.

For now, it looks like sex ed could fall victim to these budget constraints. O’Connor has recommended two of the three teachers for the chopping block, yet sentiment in favor of the program exists both in the public and on the School Committee, which ultimately has the power to chop or not to chop.

The ramifications of a committee decision to cut or disable the program remain unclear. Neither O’Connor nor Morrison know exactly how sex ed would be taught if the current program is cut. Because the sex-ed program is part of the larger health program in Portland schools, chances are the slack will be taken up by health specialists who do not have the breadth of knowledge and experience the current teachers have in the subject. However, there are no health teachers in Portland’s elementary schools, so it is even less certain if remnants of the program would survive in grades four and five.

According to Chuck Morrison, when teachers who don’t specialize in sex ed teach the subject, often “the more controversial stuff gets set aside.” The School Committee’s decision will have a direct effect on the lives of Portland students. Without a strong sex-ed program, students struggling with their sexuality will face a more hostile environment; there will be less frank talk about dating, teenage pregnancy, and STDs; and less Portland students with histories of abuse will seek help within the system.

Noah Bruce can be reached at nbruce@phx.com.