Parents of junior high students in a Pinelands, New Jersey school are furious after discovering a sex-education magazine, written by teens, in the school’s media center that contains sexually explicit content.
WUSA9.com is reporting on the dust-up between parents and school administrators of Pinelands Regional School District where a magazine called Sex, Etc. is left on tables for youth to read.
Some of the articles in the magazine are entitled, “The Clitoris and Pleasure: What You Should Know. The Q&A forum features a 14 year-old asking about an experience with oral sex. One issue of the magazine had a cover showing a cellphone with emojis of tacos and eggplants, which is internet slang for male and female genitalia. Another issue had an article entitled “Asexuality: It’s normal and so are you” as well as an article authored by a 17 year-old who accidentally directed a pregnant teen to a crisis pregnancy center and presents these life saving facilities in almost criminal terms.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate,” Cat Williams, 37, who has a 17-year-old in the school district, told WUSA.
Glenn Muso, 47, who has two children in the district, agreed.
“That’s why there are a lot of teen pregnancies out there — crap like this,” he said about the magazine. “You want them to come to you with questions.”
Even one of the school board members agreed. Stephen Kubricki urged the board to vote to remove the material from the junior high, saying the magazine contained “a level of graphic and explicit images and text which goes beyond valuable information.”
According to Lucina Holt, director of communications for the organization, Answer, which runs Sex, Etc. says the magazine is written by a staff of “rigorously trained teenagers” and follows the National Sexuality Education Standards. The contents are also reviewed by a board of doctors and sexual health educators prior to publication.
Answer is housed on the campus of Rutgers University in Piscataway, but is not funded by the school. Instead, it relies on private donations.
WUSA reports that the board instructed Interim Superintendent Maryann Banks to remove the magazines from the tables in the media center and put them on a library shelf until a final decision has been reached.
However, board attorney Amy Houck Elco is advising that they wait to remove the magazine until a committee tasked with reviewing the contents can present its report.
School policy states that material cannot be removed from the curriculum or resource materials “solely because it presents ideas that may be unpopular or offensive to some,” Houck Elco said.
The board is scheduled to meet today on the matter.
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