I presented the CHART policy to the North Bolivar School Board yesterday (2/21) during their monthly meeting, which took place at the district’s central office in Shelby, MS.  This was the first presentation done in Bolivar County, one of our newly identified Priority 1 counties.  The district held a community meeting to discuss the new sex education requirement, and there was overwhelming support for the abstinence-plus option.  Superintendent Jesse King expressed strong support for the CHART policy, along with the members of the board.

This presentation counts as the school board’s first reading of the policy.  They will officially vote on it during their March board meeting.

This past month, some significant changes were made to our CHART advocacy strategy.  As you know, the CHART initiative has been created in partnership with the Mississippi State Department of Health, which is administering the PREP grant that’s funding this initiative.

The changes are based on an updated data set we’re using to identify our Priority 1 status.  Up to this point, we’ve used five indicators for determine our advocacy priorities, based on the teen birth rate for 15-19 year old females, and the Chlamydia and gonorrhea infection rates for the total population in each county.  However, in order to reflect the target audience of the CHART initiative, we’ve decided to use a specific data set that would reflect the teen birth rate for 10-19-year-olds, and the Chlamydia and gonorrhea infection rates for 12-19-year-olds.

While the use of this new data set had virtually no effect on counties with enormously high rates, some counties on the edge of certain statuses moved up or slipped down in the ratings.  Below are the changes…

Counties Moving Up
(Up To P1) Bolivar and Yalobusha; (Up To P2) Leake

Counties Moving Down
(Down To P2) Chickasaw, Marion, Neshoba, Sharkey; (Down to P3) Calhoun, Simpson, Tippah, and Wayne

Under our partnership with MSDH, only Priority 1 districts are guaranteed full funding to implement CHART.  Priority 2 and 3 counties can receive full-funding on a first come, first served basis.  Districts that dropped from P1 status can still receive funding, but now it’s imperative that they adopt the policy as quickly as possible.

Visit our CHART Advocacy page to view the changes in our advocacy priorities.  For more information, contact Deputy Director Sanford Johnson at sanford@mississippifirst.org.

Yesterday, I presented the CHART policy to the Greenville Public School District. This is my third presentation in Washington County, a P1 county which has the highest gonorrhea infection rate in the entire state. Two other districts in the county (Western Line and Leland) have already adopted the policy.

As with most P1 counties, the health data caused some jaws to drop. It’s certain that many folks were aware of the teen pregnancy and STD problems in Washington County, but only after seeing the data does the extent of the problem set in.

The Greenville School Board was close to adopting CHART through an “emergency policy adoption”. But since we’re months away from the deadline, and the board members wanted time to carefully read the policy and answer follow-up questions, the board decided to follow their normal procedures. This will count as a first reading of the policy, with a vote taking place during the February meeting.

More to come…

During one hour on Tuesday, I was able to complete two presentations for the CHART policy. The first of these presentations was for Durant School Board (Holmes, P1), and it took place at their central office. After a brief description of the policy, I answered questions on the following topics:

Possibility of implementing a middle school curriculum only…
While the CHART policy only requires districts to start sex education by 7th grade, I strongly encouraged the board to consider implementing curricula for 7-12 grade. It wouldn’t make much sense to teach evidence-based sex ed in middle school and leave high schoolers out, especially when 76% of Mississippi 12th graders have had sex at least once.

Student sex ed requirement…
Although districts are required to teach sex education, students aren’t required to take it. I also pointed out that with the state-mandated “opt in” policy in place, students would need written permission to take part in sex ed classes.

Compliance issues…
Districts that adopt the CHART policy will receive an implementation guide, as well as a copy of the curriculum guide. The implementation guide will give districts tips on how to implement the sex ed requirement in the most effective way.

The superintendent in Durant is expected to retire this coming spring. In earlier conversations, there appeared to be some hesitation about the Board adopting a policy before the transition takes place. That said, there appeared to be some support for CHART among the board members. We’ll see what happend.

CALLING COLUMBUS

The presentation for the Columbus School District (Lowndes, P3) actually took place via-cell phone from the Fred’s Dollar Store parking lot in Durant. The district has put together a committee of teachers, administrators, and parents to review the sex ed policy options and make a recommendation to the school board. I spoke to the board while the school nurse advanced the slides of my presentation.

As usual, I started with the county teen birth and STD data. Although the rates in Lowndes County aren’t as jaw-dropping as the ones in several other counties, being so close to the state rates was enough to get a reaction from the audience. The biggest concern for the committee was the uncertainty around the curricula. As with other districts, members of this committee wanted to see what would be taught in these recommended programs. We’re working to provide additional information for our recommended curricula on our website, which would include lesson titles and objectives.

UPDATE: The committee voted to recommend the CHART abstinence-plus policy for school board approval.

Before a packed house at the Hollandale School District Office, I spoke to board members about the CHART Abstinence-Plus policy. This was the first board presentation in Washington County, which is one of our Priority 1 counties.

The presentation was quick and went something like this: teen birth and STD rates in Washington County are alarmingly high, the district is now legally required to provide sex ed, abstinence-plus is far more effective than abstinence-only programs, and CHART is free. The words “needed”, “required”, “effective” and “free” are mainstays in CHART presentations.

Board members plan to review as many sex ed policy options as possible between now and the January board meeting. It’s possible that they will decide on a policy at that board meeting. In the coming weeks, we will continue to reach out to district administrators and board members to build support for the policy.

In the next 48 hours, I will also present CHART to the Durant (Holmes, P1), Jackson (Hinds, P2), and Leland (Washington, P1) school districts.

Stay tuned…

My name is Erika Berry and I am a 2011 Teach for America Policy and Advocacy Leadership Initiative (PALI) Fellow, and I have the wonderful privilege this summer of working with Mississippi First for my PALI fellowship.  The bulk of my work this summer is creating the school-visit protocol for the school visit portion of the Success for All Students high-performing, high-poverty schools report.  The Success for All Students report will demonstrate that ALL KIDS CAN LEARN, and visits to these high-performing, high-poverty schools in Mississippi will provide comprehensive evidence of the positive impact that successful schools can have on changing the life trajectory of their students.  I am pursing a Master in Public Policy (Education Policy) degree at Vanderbilt University, with an anticipated graduation date of May 2012.  Before graduate school I taught sixth- and seventh-grade math for two years in Charlotte, NC, as a 2008 Teach for America corps member, and graduated from Ole Miss in 2008 with a B.A. in Political Science.

My name is Charles Woods (charles@mississippifirst.org) and I am a Trent Lott Institute of Public Policy intern for Mississippi First for this summer. I am a rising junior at the University of Mississippi seeking degrees in Public Policy Leadership, International Studies, and Spanish. This summer, I am working in conjunction with the Women’s Fund of Mississippi and the Mississippi Economic Policy Center, to examine the economic consequences of teen childbearing (pregnancy and births) to Mississippi. Specifically, we are determining the ‘public cost’ of teen pregnancy and births in Mississippi—the the cost to the national, state, and county governments as well as the cost to society). Before school starts, we should have economic fact sheets for every county in Mississippi as well as an in-depth issue brief about the honestly shocking burden that teen pregnancy and teen births have on our state. In a larger context, by demonstrating just how much more of an economic burden each Mississippian is saddled with when compared to other Americans, these fact sheets and the issue brief will hopefully persuade our state and local leaders of the need for school districts to adopt the CHART policy to implement abstinence-plus, medically accurate sex-education.

This week, the Marshall County School District became the 3rd school district to adopt the CHART abstinence-plus sex ed policy. The district is joining the neighboring Benton County School District in adopting the policy. Along with the Tunica County School District, these three districts will provide their students with evidence-based sex education one year before the new sex ed requirement. All public school districts in the state must adopt and implement an “abstinence-only” or an “abstinence-plus” sex education program by the start of the 2012-13 school year.

Although Marshall County is a “Priority 2″ county (those with teen birth rates only slightly above the state averages), district board members and administrators expressed strong interest in adopting the policy. And as we’ve mentioned before, districts that adopt the CHART policy will receive curricula, training, and technical assistance at no cost.

More districts are expected to vote on the policy in the coming weeks. In the meantime, MSF will continue to work with the State Departments of Health and Education to finalize the implementation process for the upcoming year. We will keep you posted as new developments materialize.

I am writing to inform you about a recent development that may have a significant impact on our effort to reduce teen pregnancy and STD rates in Mississippi. As many of you know, Mississippi First has recently launched the Creating Healthy and Responsible Teens (CHART) initiative. CHART gives school districts the opportunity to adopt a sex education policy and implement curricula that have been proven to reduce teen pregnancy and STD rates. A federal grant also allows districts to take part in this initiative at no cost.

Last week, the State Legislature passed a new sex education bill (H.B. 999), which is expected to be signed by the governor today or tomorrow.  The one positive aspect of the bill is that it requires each public school district to adopt a sex education policy and implement a curriculum in time for the 2012-13 school year.  Unfortunately, the bill also includes new restrictions that would create major obstacles for districts in implementing quality sex ed programs.  Among other restrictions, this bill requires written parental permission for students, mandates single-gender sex ed classes, and prohibits teaching how to properly use contraceptives. If signed, we will have to make significant changes to the CHART model policy and how we suggest districts implement the policy.

We have worked closely with the State Departments of Education and Health in creating CHART.  If this bill becomes law, we will continue to work with both departments to determine how this policy can move forward in the most effective way possible. I will keep you informed about any new developments, and please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about this initiative or the pending legislation.

Thank you!