Anti-abortion Crisis Pregnancy Centers

I also have great concern about the lack of attention that individual school administrators and teachers gave to the very important responsibility of assuring the accuracy of the information of an outside organization that teachers invite into the classroom, especially an organization, as I said earlier, that is controversial, deals with such a controversial subject, and has an admitted religious bias in what information they provide to students and the accuracy of that information.

First, some teachers did everything but listen to the presenter while others listened with one ear while they worked on the computer on their desks or graded papers. Some teachers came in an out of the presentations and some teachers were absent leaving their students with a substitute teacher or student teacher, the former, I understand from district officials, is not appropriate according to district policy.

During the 2001 school year, in my daughter's health class at Rocky Mountain High School, the teacher, in my judgment, clearly sympathetic to the Alpha Center, told me she had previously reprimanded the Alpha Center for using inaccurate information, telling them that until they changed or removed the information they could not present in her classroom. She told me that the Alpha Center had referred to their not being allowed to

present in her classroom on that occasion as "black Tuesday." But then this same teacher invited the Alpha Center back into her classroom in the subsequent year, into my daughter's health class, where she was absent during the Alpha Center's presentation and a substitute or student teacher, I am not sure which, was present. In this presentation the Alpha Center did not disclose to students what kind of organization they are or all of the services they do not provide, though they did place their phone number on the board telling students they were a resource for them if they became pregnant. The Alpha Center also said in that class, "Condoms aren't meant to protect you from HIV just pregnancy."

That outright false statement the Alpha Center presenter made regarding the protection condoms offer against HIV, was a statement the substitute/student teacher never heard or he simply did not recognize the information as being erroneous information. That is dangerous and could prove deadly for our children. In either case the Alpha Center was not challenged nor was such erroneous information corrected, on the spot, for the students, as it should have been. While I could speak to my daughter at home and correct that dangerous information, no other parent of a child in that classroom was afforded that opportunity.

"I also have great concern about the lack of attention that individual
school administrators and teachers gave to the very important
responsibility of assuring the accuracy of the information
of an outside organization that teachers invite into the classroom."

It is also important to note that this particular educator said she was capable of looking out for her students' best interest and would indeed be upfront with the Alpha Center should they present inaccurate information in her classrooms. Yet, in spite of her statement she left my daughter's classroom without the close scrutiny and oversight she said she was capable of providing and which she agreed to give, even after admitting that she had in the more recent past reprimanded the Alpha Center for delivering inaccurate and erroneous information to her students. And remember, she is the educator who said she brings other speakers into the classroom after the Alpha Center to present "the other side" to students.

Moreover, this teacher clearly resented my intervention on behalf of my daughter and my review of what was transpiring in her classroom as both a parent of a child in the district and most likely as a representative of Life and Liberty for Women. In fact in this last school year as I began requesting of teachers who were going to utilize the Alpha Center again, this teacher among them, to observe their presentations, this teacher was adamant that she would physically bar me from her classroom if I tried to enter. Consequently, either a district official or her vice-principal or neither was present in the spring when the Alpha Center presented in her classroom.

In my many observations at both the junior and high school level in the 2002-2003 school year, I found that sentiment is apparently shared by other school administrators and teachers, at least in practice, because some invited the Alpha Center to present their abstinence-only till marriage curriculum and then supplemented information about STDs/HIV/AIDS, condoms, and contraceptives with other organizations like Colorado State University Health Services or NCAP - Northern Colorado AIDS Project. One junior high instructor told me, in a nutshell; that NCAP's presentation on HIV/AIDS and STDS was more the way such information should be presented and was more accurate.

Moreover, it is important to understand that a forum for competing ideas is a debate format or a panel discussion format in which two competing ideas can be simultaneously presented, heard, and compared and contrasted by students. Such a forum is reserved for and best used for topics in which debate is appropriate. For example, should sex education be taught in public schools? Should the sex education program be an abstinence-based comprehensive one or an abstinence-only till marriage program? Should condoms be distributed on high school campuses?

"During the 2001 school year, in my daughter's health class
at Rocky Mountain High School.The Alpha Center said,
'Condoms aren't meant to protect you from HIV just pregnancy."

A forum in which competing ideas and philosophies or methods are offered is not an appropriate forum for the delivery of a sex education program. There is no such thing as a competition of ideas when it involves mainstream well proven, documented and accepted scientifically based information such as the pregnancy and disease prevention qualities of consistently and correctly used condoms.

An educator viewing an abstinence-based comprehensive curriculum and an abstinence-only till marriage curriculum as merely "competing views" that can be presented in any other forum other than a debate or panel discussion forum is doing the wrong thing for his/her students.

And it is clear that parents have no idea about exactly what is being presented or what forum it is being presented in, including that their student is receiving "two competing views" about avoiding and preventing a life-altering unintended pregnancy, a sexually transmitted disease, or HIV/AIDS, which leads to certain death. That is very problematic and troubling and I am sure would concern every parent who was made aware of such, regardless of

whether they are abstinence-only till marriage supporters or supporters of an abstinence-based comprehensive sex education program.

Thirdly, teachers who are sympathetic to the Alpha Center, would not challenge erroneous information because they would not believe it to be erroneous while many, if not most other teachers, who may not be trained sex educators or more likely, aware of the role the organization's religious and philosophical bias plays in their presentations, will trust the organization to present scientifically accurate information. Inaccurate information presented as a result of the Alpha Center's religious beliefs may end up going unnoticed and unchallenged.

It is equally important for school principals and vice-principals to be fully aware of the outside organizations and speakers their teachers are bringing into the classroom, most particularly when these groups or speakers are dealing with such sensitive information as is involved in sex education programs. I am confident they realize there comes with such individual school oversight, a very serious responsibility to ensure the accuracy of the information presented in their school's classrooms.

"I think too that it is important to be aware that any changes in the way the Alpha Center conducted their presentations or any change to the information they relayed in the classroom that Poudre School District demanded in 2001, hasn't changed any philosophical or religious beliefs they hold.or that any such demands by the district has changed their primary purpose for existence."

While Rocky Mountain High School had a vice-principal that observed at least one Alpha Center presentation, I am not clear that he, also not a trained sex educator, was aware of the particulars of the Alpha Center's religious bias and agenda and how that bias colored what they presented, such as the information on condoms the Alpha Center presented in 2001 to my daughter's health class. Unless an administrator sits in the classroom in the first place, and as with teachers, know what to listen for and actively listens for both accuracy of the sex education information presented and information presented that goes to the organization's religious bias in the second place, they cannot render proper oversight to the accuracy of information district students are being presented with from this outside group.

Finally, I think too that it is important to be aware that any changes in the way the Alpha Center conducted their presentations or any change to the information they relayed in the classroom that Poudre School District demanded in 2001, has not changed any philosophical or religious beliefs they hold regarding abstinence, contraceptives and condoms, or that any such demands by the district has changed their primary purpose for existence, that is to bring in to their center as many abortion-minded or abortion-vulnerable women and teenage girls as they can so they may persuade them not to have an abortion. That fact makes it questionable, or should for parents, community members, school district board members, school district officials, and district educators, that the Alpha Center, which has and still is presenting inaccurate information, could be trusted in the classroom without constant oversight from individuals familiar with their philosophical and religious beliefs and agenda.

I do not believe it is wise for Poudre School District to involve itself with a community organization in the manner it has involved itself with the Alpha Center, when such an organization has proven itself time and again to be so very untrustworthy. Nor is it wise for the district to involve itself with an organization which disseminates sex education information that is colored by a religious bias and goals and a philosophical belief that is diametrically opposed to the district's goals and philosophical belief made clear in their comprehensive health education policy.

OBSERVATION: It was clear that while Alpha Center volunteers had a notebook of information in front of them from which to refer, and while some material was common in all the presentations I observed, they clearly had broad discretion about what information they personally wanted to deliver and how they would deliver it, what "games" they wanted to expose students to, and the introduction of statements or material clearly biased toward personal beliefs and the organization's religious beliefs and political agenda. I am concerned that the lack of consistency in their presentations from one classroom to another is confusing for students, not productive toward promoting abstinence and is highly detrimental to students.

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