School mixup highlights sensitivity over Abstinence until Marriage program

In January, the principal of C.E. Williams Middle School wrote parents and encouraged them to have their children participate in the Heritage Keepers Life Skills Education program.

In the letter, the principal emphasized that the 12-session program helps students make good decisions, and that "abstinence education" was "not the focus."

But when Carole Black, a parent of an 11-year-old boy, visited the school to learn more about the classes, she was surprised to find passages in the Heritage student manual urging students to abstain from sex until marriage.

Black said she thinks it's fine to teach children about abstinence, but she's concerned that Heritage teaches a faith-based version of abstinence that's out of place in public schools. "I feel like I was misled," said Black, who declined to sign a permission slip.

Judith Peterson, the school's principal, also feels as if she's been put in a difficult spot. She said Heritage Community Services, the nonprofit that runs the programs, said the sixth-grade program was about "character education," not abstinence.

"I'm definitely looking into this. I want it handled correctly," she said Monday.

The situation at Williams Middle highlights the sensitive nature of the abstinence-only issue. It also comes as state lawmakers are poised to wade into this emotional thicket.

The House Ways and Means Committee is expected to debate legislation today that would create a new five-person committee to study funding requests from groups that teach abstinence courses.

The legislation also would nix funding to groups that teach "medically inaccurate" information — defined as information contradicted by "peer-reviewed research by leading medical" and other public health groups.

A subcommittee approved the legislation last week.

The debate in the General Assembly sets the stage for a battle between abstinence groups, who say their programs are scientifically sound, and critics who argue that abstinence-only programs don't work, and that it's more effective to teach about abstinence and birth control.

Millions of tax dollars are potentially at stake, especially for Heritage Community Services, the dominant provider of abstinence-only education programs in South Carolina. A Post and Courier analysis of the group's public tax returns showed the group received or was allocated $23.2 million from grants and other government sources since 1997, about 99 percent of the group's annual budgets.

Read more in Tuesday's edition of The Post and Courier.