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For almost a century, schools have developed programs aimed at reducing sexual behaviors which place youth at risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). In the early 1900s, concern surfaced that young people were having sex prior to marriage and that venereal disease was increasing. Believing that accurate information about venereal disease would prevent youth from engaging in sex, schools introduced sex education.

Both during and since the decades that followed, a variety of school-based health programs have been implemented. The length of these programs has varied from one-hour, didactic presentations on sexuality education to semester-long, comprehensive health education programs. The content of these programs has ranged from discussions about abstinence until marriage to the acquisition of knowledge/skills to comprehensive programs that include the dispensing of contraceptives.

Two reports brought teenage pregnancy and sex education into the arena of national debate. The National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences released a series of recommendations that dealt with "problems posed by growing numbers of unmarried, teenage mothers." In another report, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop called for sex education in schools that "must include information on heterosexual and homosexual relationships." In September 1991, the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services set forth national health objectives. These objectives which were outlined in Healthy People 2000: National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives included: family planning, and the prevention of HIV infection and STDS. The report mentioned that schools could directly contribute to the attainment of these objectives.

Then, in 1991, the Massachusetts Departments of Education and Public Health issued a joint communication urging all local school districts to "create programs which make instruction about HIV/AIDS available to every student at every grade level." It was recommended that every school committee, in consultation with school administrators, faculty, parents, and students consider making condoms available in their secondary schools. That November, the Massachusetts Board of Education announced new guidelines for sex education urging schools to teach children as early as kindergarten about sex organs and AIDS.

To understand the need for sexuality education in public schools, it is helpful to examine national and statewide data. A national study conducted by the Alan Guttmacher Institute concluded that one-fourth of all adolescent females and one-third of all adolescent males have intercourse by age 15. In Massachusetts, one-half of the 3,000 high school students surveyed in 1993 reported having had sexual intercourse. Among students who had sexual intercourse in the preceding three months, 52% reported using a condom and 33% reported not using any contraceptive method.

Data quantifying the consequences of practicing unsafe sex are also available. Nationally, in 1992, one million adolescent women between the ages of 15 and 19 became pregnant. An additional 30,000 became pregnant before age 15. . .

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