Brooklyn High School To Hand Out 500 Condoms After Prom

Brooklyn High School To Hand Out 500 Condoms After Prom

Condoms and corsages:

Prom season is packed with choices for high school students — which dress, which tuxedo, which music, which flowers? This year, students in at least one high school will have one more choice to make: whether or not to pick up a condom or two on their way out the door. Bedford-Stuyvesant Preparatory High School in Brooklyn, N.Y. will make 500 condoms available at the school’s June 7 prom. “As they leave the prom, they are welcome to it,” school principal Darryl Rascoe said in an interview. “We are not forcing it on anybody, but we want them to have that option.”

Worries about underage drinking or risky sex on prom night have prompted scores of prevention programs at schools around the country, from scheduling the event on weeknights to chaperoned after-parties. But handing out free condoms as part of the festivities is a wrong move, says Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, an advocacy group that resists comprehensive sex education in schools. “We are concerned that the distribution of condoms on school campuses further normalizes teen sex,” she told msnbc.com via email.

Principal Rascoe says he’s unaware of any opposition to the prom condom plan. Bedford-Stuyvesant Prep, a small, “transfer” school of about 130 students which teens attend after having had academic, disciplinary, or other difficulties elsewhere, conducts safe sex forums and already distributes condoms through sex education initiatives. Other New York City high school allow students to request free condoms as part of HIV/AIDS prevention programs. The Brooklyn school also houses one of New York City Schools’ “Lyfe” (Living for the Young Family through Education) centers, a day-care facility for the young children of current students.

The prom condom distribution plan will be accompanied by a safe sex school assembly sponsored by the condom maker a few days before the prom. An essay contest on the topic of safe sex will be judged by the school’s English department. NuVo has made a similar prom condom offer to other schools, although Bedford-Stuyvesant Prep is the only taker so far. The one-year-old company hopes the marketing stunt gets “the positive aspects of condom use out there,” vice-president Ben Isaacs explained.

In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that “schools should be considered appropriate sites for the availability of condoms, because they contain large adolescent populations and may potentially provide a comprehensive array of related educational and health care resources.”

For the Brooklyn school’s principal, the prom condom plan is about the future of teenagers. Though students may have had trouble at other settings, Rascoe said, the “first thing that should roll off your tongue when you say Bed-Stuy Prep is college. We are trying to prepare you for college and for life.” Getting pregnant, he said “is self-sabotage. It makes it more difficult to move forward and life becomes a struggle.”

Thoughts??

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