For the first time, city high school students will see condom demonstrations in sex education classes starting this fall.
The city’s Department of Education alerted superintendents last month that schools may include condom demonstration as part of the city’s required health education course. The announcement, which was first reported in The Classic, Townsend Harris High School’s paper, was made to give teens an improved sex ed lesson.
“Condom demonstrations have long been part of the high school condom availability programs and have been shown to increase rates of condom use. Allowing condom demonstrations in high school health education class will provide students with medically accurate information that can help them stay healthy,” the DOE said in a statement yesterday.
Parents can opt out of the class along with other sexual health education prevention lessons, according to a DOE spokesman.
Four years ago, schools began implementing condom use in their sex ed classes. Instructors were allowed to talk about the subject weren’t permitted to visually show their use. Townsend Harris teachers felt this was inadequate for their students, according to the school’s paper.
