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EMBARGOED UNTIL WED., CONTACT: Richard Urban
NOVEMBER 28, 5:30 PM 202-544-5081
202-255-4567 (Cell)
Washington, D.C. – A directive abstinence program offered to Washington DC public school youth is set to be eliminated and the program’s provider, ULTRA Teen Choice, barred from the city’s schools if new Health Standards are adopted, according to the non-profit group. The group claims that since ULTRA Teen Choice doesn’t promote the acceptance of homosexuality, abortion, and contraception, activists, including those from METRO TeenAIDS, another provider, are lobbying for its ouster from the public school system. METRO TeenAIDS is one of the organizations which helped develop the city’s Health Standards.
ULTRA Teen Choice testified against the proposed Health Standards before the DC. School Board Wednesday night and requested continuation of its program which teaches teens about HIV/AIDS prevention, promotes abstinence from pre-marital sex, drugs, alcohol, and tobacco use, offers peer support and provides a mentoring program in partnership with college students from local universities such as Howard and George Washington. These mentors encourage youth in their decision to avoid the physical, intellectual, emotional, social and moral consequences of substance abuse and sexual activity, according to Richard Urban, ULTRA Teen’s executive director.
“It is ironic that those who promote more ‘choices’ for youth are actually seeking to deny the choice of youth who want to remain sexually abstinent,” says Urban, “Activists who want to promote the acceptance of homosexuality and the promotion of contraception to 6th -8th graders have found support in Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s office. ULTRA Teen Choice clubs have been targeted since last Spring by activists who wish to eliminate the abstinence program from D.C. Public Schools and have found a way with the proposed Health Standards.”
ULTRA Teen Choice was recently barred from continuing its abstinence program at Stuart-Hobson Middle School because of a moratorium placed by the Chancellor’s office to ensure consistency with DC standards . Over 30 students were participating in two ULTRA Teen Choice Service Clubs at the school until it was abruptly suspended after four years of successful operation. The ULTRA Teen Choice Program has already been reviewed multiple times by the DC Public Schools HIV AIDS office.
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- Category: Abstinence Discrimination
From: Eatman, Brandon (MS) [mailto:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.]
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2007 11:14 AM
To: Richard Urban
Subject: RE: STOP HIV/AIDS & support our youth! Mr. Urban,
The LSRT is against Ultra Teen Choice continuing at Stuart-Hobson Middle School.
They say that your program does not match the DCPS health standards and they do not want an abstinanace only program at Stuart-Hobson.
If you have any questions you can email LSRT chairperson Rachel Kimboko ... This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Take care,
Brandon Eatman
Response from Local School Restructuring Team to an ULTRA Teen Choice Parent
Subject: Ultra Teen Choice @ SHMS
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 08:15:57 -0500
Ms. Brown:
I am working on a more detailed response to you, but wanted to acknowledge your letter. Briefly though, let me confirm that the LSRT decided last year that the school should remove Ultra Teen Choice because their curriculum failed to meet the DC Standards at the time. Certainly, there is no chance that they will meet the new standards when adopted, so it is unlikely that we would invite them to return.
Rachel Kimboko
Email from Richard Nyankori, special assistant to School Chancellor Michelle Rhee
From: Nyankori, Richard (OOC) [mailto:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.]
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 10:20 AM
To: Eatman, Brandon (MS); ULTRA Teen Choice
Subject: RE: Information needed
The chancellor has placed a moratorium on all external providers of health and consumer education. Her goal is to ensure providers programs are consistent with DC standards.
From: Eatman, Brandon (MS)
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 10:16 AM
To: ULTRA Teen Choice; Nyankori, Richard (OOC)
Subject: RE: Information needed
You need to contact Dr. Richard Nyankori in the Chancellor's Office...the Chancellor has placed a moratorium on programs like UTC.
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
From: ULTRA Teen Choice [mailto:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.]
Sent: Tue 11/20/2007 2:55 PM
To: Eatman, Brandon (MS)
Subject: Information needed Hi Mr. Eatman,
Can you send a list of all of the the current Cluster Schools LSRT members, and their cluster school affiliation (Stuart, Watkins, Peabody) and position, such as parent, teacher, community representative, etc? Also, we need a specific delineation of which Health Education Standards are allegedly being violated. At this point, the claims of the LSRT are without substance, as that body as never delineated any specific reason why the ULTRA Teen Choice program should not be offered for students and parents who choose to participate.
Richard Urban
- Details
- Category: Abstinence Discrimination
DC Youth Need Character-Based Sex Education, Not More Condoms
District of Columbia Public Schools first released draft Health Learning Standards on July 2, 2007.
There is much that is good about the standards. The majority of the material is appropriate in terms of age and learning standards. However, there are serious flaws in the materials. The standards lack an overarching directive approach that seeks the best for our youth by encouraging them to abstain from sex before marriage. Youth should be asked, encouraged and supported to live up to the highest standards, not expected to fall to the lowest ones.
According to the 2005 YRBSS, 52% of District of Columbia high school youth have never had sexual intercourse, a 16 percent increase in abstaining youth in just two years! Furthermore, 76% of District of Columbia middle school students have never had sexual intercourse, a 9 percent increase in abstaining youth in just two years. Shouldn’t we encourage this positive trend, instead of rushing to provide ever more condoms (like the 1,000,000 condoms campaign) to any one who wants one.
Considering that the District of Columbia government has been, and continues to emphasize distributing condoms as the primary method of HIV prevention, and that DC has one of the highest rates of HIV infection of any similar sized city in the nation, it hardly makes sense to continue to emphasize more of the same.
Also, there seems to be a glaring lack of input form students and parents about what the health standards should and should not include. Since these are those primarily effected by these standards, this is totally unacceptable. The promotion of contraception to 7th grade students, and the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity beginning in 6th grade is completely unacceptable to the great majority of parents and students.
My experience as the Executive Director and co-founder of ULTRA Teen Choice is that parents, teachers, and students overwhelmingly want sex education to be directive and to provide an expected standard of abstinence from all sexual activity before marriage. Additionally, in ten years of working with youth in grades five to twelve, I have never had any parents that we were serving request that we provide information on alternative lifestyles, such as homosexuality.
Yet, the draft standards prominently feature this information for 6th and 8th grade students. This appears to be driven by an agenda that seeks to create acceptance of unhealthy lifestyles on an equal footing with healthy ones. Rather, we need a bold new approach with health standards that encourage youth to live up to the highest, character based standard. Furthermore, DCPS should encourage and fund programs that support youth who are striving to achieve these high standards.
There is a concerted effort by those who support the introduction of the discussion of contraception and sexual orientation in middle school to prevent programs that provide directive, character based education from operating in DC public schools. One parent prodded the Principal of Stuart-Hobson Middle School to invite the City Year program to come to Stuart-Hobson. City Year is a so called comprehensive sex educating program, that includes discussion of contraception methods for 7th and 8th grade youth. Now the same parent wants the ULTRA Teen Choice program to be excluded. The parents opposing the ULTRA Teen Choice program are not racially representative of the school, which has an 87% black population. Furthermore, many of them do not even have children at Stuart-Hobson, since the Local School Restructuring Team (LSRT) is for all of the Capitol Hill Cluster Schools which serve children as young as age three.
Here are six draft standards that need to be deleted or modified:
6th grade:
Sexuality, Reproduction, and Health 6.1.6 Explain that people, regardless of biological sex, gender, ability, sexual orientation, gender identity and culture, have sexual feeling and the need for love, affection and physical intimacy.
Change this to:
6.1.5 Explain that people have sexual feelings and the need for love, and that it is normal to have these feelings, but that sex should occur only within marriage.
7th grade
Sexuality, Reproduction, and Health
7.1.7 Analyze the social, cultural, religious, and legal factors that influence the choice and use of contraception; and discuss the importance of consistent and effective contraceptive use.
The expected standard for middle school youth is abstinence. Parents, not DCPS, should decide whether consistent and effective use of contraception is the preferred method of prevention for their children.. This standard should be deleted entirely.
8th Grade
Sexuality, Reproduction, and Health
8/1.5 Define sexual orientation, using correct terminology, and explain that as people grow and develop, they may begin to feel romantically and or sexually attracted to people of a different gender and/or to people of the same gender
This discussion is wholly inappropriate for a public school setting. Parents should be the ones to decide to introduce these topics, not DCPS. This standard should be deleted entirely.
8.1.6 Compare and contrast the theories about what determines sexual orientation including genetics; prenatal, social, and cultural influences; psychosocial factors; and a combination of all of these.
Again, this is absolutely inappropriate for public school students. Scientific evidence does not provide any consensus at all on this topic, and the most important factor for many people, which is their religious convictions, should not be included in a public school environment. The decision to discuss or not discuss this topic should be left solely to parents. This standard should be deleted entirely.
9th grade
Human Growth and Development
9.1.5 Analyze trends in teen pregnancy rates, teen births, contraceptive practices and the availability of abortion
This standard needs to be changed to:
9.1.5 Analyze trends in teen pregnancy rates, teen births, plus YRBSS data showing that the majority of high school students have never had sexual intercourse. Discuss why abstinence from all sexual activity outside of marriage is the only 100% sure way to prevent STIs, pregnancy, and social and emotional consequences of sexual relationships.
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- Category: Abstinence Discrimination
Chancellor Rhee and Honorable Members of the DC State Board of Education. My name is Richard Urban. I am the Executive Director and co-founder of ULTRA, or Urban Life Training & Reality Assessment, Teen Choice. ULTRA Teen Choice is a youth empowerment program that guides youth toward the formation of two parent families and positive character development by emphasizing the benefits of abstinence from drugs, alcohol, and sex before marriage. We serve schools, community based and faith based organizations.
The program provides HIV/AIDS and teen pregnancy prevention education plus character development education. Currently, our program serves over 500 youth at Eastern Senior High School and Stuart-Hobson Middle School, both in Ward 6, and at School Without Walls Senior High School in Ward 2.
ULTRA Teen Choice opposes the draft “Health Learning Standards” and urges the Board of Education to do likewise. Our main areas of concern are that the draft standards require discussion of sexuality and sexual orientation that does not reflect the values of the majority of the parents and students served. This includes the discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation for 6th grade, contraception as the preferred method of birth control for 7th grade, the discussion of sexual orientation and theories of what determines sexual orientation for 8th grade, and the availability of abortion for 9th grade.
If that is not bad enough, youth are given no guidelines about expected standards of sexual behavior after 5th grade. There is little discussion of the physical, intellectual, emotional, social and moral benefits of abstaining from sexual relations, and no discussion of the benefits of forming a family before having sexual relationships. Apparently children are expected to fend for themselves in a city that has the highest HIV infection rates of any comparable US city. Abstaining from sex before marriage and stable family formation are not expressed as a desirable goal for young people.
In fact, youth in DC are responding to the message of abstinence. According to the 2005 YRBSS, 52% of District of Columbia high school youth have never had sexual intercourse, a 16 percent increase in abstaining youth in just two years! Furthermore, 76% of District of Columbia middle school students have never had sexual intercourse, a 9 percent increase in abstaining youth in just two years. Shouldn’t we encourage this positive trend, instead of rushing to provide ever more condoms (like the 1,000,000 condoms campaign) to any one who wants one?
The draft standards will be used to eliminate ULTRA Teen Choice (UTC) and other directive abstinence programs from DC public schools. This has already happened at Stuart-Hobson Middle School, where the UTC program was told to stop last week after four years of successful service even though 30 youth were participating in the ULTRA Teen Choice Service Club. The Chancellor’s office has until now supported this effort by stating that “The Chancellor has placed a moratorium on all external providers of health and consumer education. Her goal is to ensure providers programs are consistent with DC standards”.
This is in spite of the fact that the UTC program has been reviewed multiple times by the DCPS HIV/AIDS office.
There is a hidden agenda among those promoting the addition of discussion of gender identity, sexual orientation, and contraception for 6th, 7th and 8th grade youth, and discussion of the availability of abortion for 9th grade youth to deny students the choice to have a program that encourages and supports them in their decision to stay abstinent.
Jeremy Ogusky, one of the authors of the proposed Health Standards, wrote in an email last spring that “This is a good opportunity to neutralize [ULTRA Teen Choice] now’. He has a clear bias against directive abstinence programs, and should not have been allowed to work on drafting the standards.
The just released HIV/AIDS surveillance report for Washington DC and the recently released report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing increasing rates for Sexually transmitted diseases and a very high rate of HIV/AIDS infection.
It is ironic that those who promote more “choices” for youth are actually denying the choice of youth who want to remain sexually abstinent.
The Health Education Standards must include language that specifically welcomes programs that directively teach abstinence from sexual activity until marriage as the expected standard of behavior for school age children.
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- Category: Abstinence Discrimination
Eatman, Brandon (MS) From: Ed Lazere [This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.]
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 7:04 AM
To: Tina May; Sherry Trafford; Jackie & Daryl Sink; TownsendPineFamily; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; Kathleen Brown; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; Laurie Heim; Riehie, Barbara; Robert Zakin; Mark O'Donnell
Cc: Eatman, Brandon (MS); Suzanne Griffith Subject: RE: Health class at Stu-Hob
Thanks for this information. This sounds pretty outrageous. A group that opposes condom use should not, in my opinion, be talking to our kids.
Mr. Eatman, is there a way to postpone the assembly to give us time to meet with you about this group?
Tina, is it possible that you could convert the flier to a pdf and email it to us? I did not see it. If not, are there extra fliers at StuartHobson that we can pick up, Mr. Eatman?
----------------------------- Original Message
From: Tina May [mailto:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.]
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2007 5:15 PM
To: Sherry Trafford; Jackie & Daryl Sink; TownsendPineFamily; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; Ed Lazere; Kathleen Brown; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; Laurie Heim; Riehle, Barbara; Robert Zakin; Mark O'Donnell
Cc: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Subject: FYI: Health class at Stu-Hob
Hello all! I just wanted to be sure you were aware of the abstinence promotion program happening at Stuart-Hobson. Seventh and eighth graders taking PE/Health this quarter have a short, three-session program by an outside group promoting AIDS/HIV awareness and abstinence. In addition, apparently next week is Abstinence Awareness Week and there will be a school "Power of Purity" assembly on Thursday, March 15 at 9:00am.
Both Mr. Booker and Mr. Eatman assure me that it is a very simple program with an informative and generally accepted message, and doesn't step over boundaries for the age of our kids. The program and the group have been cleared by the appropriate DCPS administrator. Mr. Booker and Mr. Eatman will continue to monitor the program and I trust their judgement.
What brought this program to my attention was a small red flyer promoting Abstinence Awareness Week that was brought home.
The "Fact Sheet" on the flyer, along with many statistics about AIDS/pregnancy/STDs, also contains several statements against condoms. While I hope our middle-schoolers do not yet need debate about condom-use, I was concerned about a group that was against the reality of condom-use for adults in the fight against AIDs, unwanted pregnancy, etc. Also, the list of sponsors of the program included some religious groups and I was concerned about the general issue of the separation of church and state.
This prompted me to go online to find out more about the group, ULTRA Teen Choice, and the administrator Richard Urban. UTC also does a program at Eastern High, there are after-school "clubs" and Mr. Urban lives on the Hill. Beyond the basic message of promoting health and strengthening families through abstinence until marriage, I found some more controversial items. Mr. Urban is against any condom use (outside of marriage). He is intolerant of homosexuality. And Mr. Urban is a member of the Rev. Sun Myung-Moon's Unification Church. The group's website is urbanlifetraining.org (check the "Commentaries" section for his account of an issue with the ANC). But I suggest you look at www.tparents.org, a Unification Church site, where you can find the writings of Richard Urban and the basis for his program (look for "The Words of the Urban Family"; I find 'Testimony on Tong Ban Kyok Pa, August 31, 2004" to be interesting).
I plan to be at the assembly and sit in on one of Health classes, as suggested by Mr. Booker. I also have some ideas about other ways to check into the group. Let me know if you have any thoughts on the matter and whether you would like me to keep you informed.
Tina May