"A small group of parents and students from the Charlottesville area rallied alongside U.S. 29 on Thursday to denounce abstinence-only sex-ed lessons in Central Virginia school systems.

Held outside the Wood Grill Buffet, the “Honk and Wave for REAL Sex Ed” protest was intended to raise awareness about what proponents see as the need for medically accurate, comprehensive sexuality education in schools.

“I want to promote safe sex among all our teenagers - and that means teaching them about abstinence, diseases, condoms, the whole story,” said Tricia Branch, mother of a sophomore at Albemarle County High School. “Abstinence-only doesn’t tell that whole story.”

The rally coincided with a community health forum at the Doubletree Hotel Charlottesville that was sponsored by Worth Your Wait, a Ruckersville nonprofit organization that teaches abstinence-focused lessons in the counties of Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, Nelson and Orange.

Worth Your Wait’s abstinence lessons are not taught in the Charlottesville or Albemarle County school systems, though the organization is seeking to expand into those localities. An Albemarle administrator said the county has no immediate plans to offer the program. A Charlottesville administrator did not return a phone call by press time.

Worth Your Wait, which is affiliated with the Pregnancy Centers of Central Virginia, is funded by a $645,642 grant from the U.S. Health and Human Services’ abstinence education program. In all, the federal government spends about $127 million each year for abstinence-until-marriage education.

Worth Your Wait uses a curriculum called WhykNOw, which teaches students that abstinence from sexual activity is a viable option.

“We believe students in all these counties deserve to hear about healthy choices that help prevent negative consequences in their lives,” said Cynthia Dussault, director of the organization.

Worth Your Wait’s lessons typically take place over four days in a school’s health class. It is only a small part of the larger family life education curriculum that is taught primarily to students in the sixth grade and up.

“A teenager’s life is like a toolbox and we’re giving them the tools to make good decisions,” Dussault said. “It shows them that whatyou decide today can maybe affect what happens in your life tomorrow.”

Yet the WhykNOw curriculum has been accused of making inaccurate scientific claims and of promoting gender stereotypes. A 2004 study by the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform found that WhykNOw understated the effectiveness of condoms, overstated the health risks of sexual activity and made factual errors, such as stating that human cells have 24 chromosomes from each parent, rather than 23.

“These programs are actually designed to undermine students’ confidence in safe sex,” said Becky Reid, grassroots organizer at Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge.

Dussault said the WhykNOw curriculum has been overhauled since the errors were highlighted in 2004.

The effectiveness of federally funded abstinence-only education has been called into question in recent weeks. A study released earlier this month that had been commissioned by Congress found that students who took abstinence-only education classes were just as likely as their peers to have premarital sex.

In Nelson County, the school system brought in Worth Your Wait last September on a pilot basis. “It’s just one little piece of the curriculum,” said Jo Ann Wagner, assistant superintendent of instruction. “They talk about sexual abstinence, but also things like abstaining from alcohol.”

But when Planned Parenthood reviewed the curriculum in Nelson, they found objectionable statements, including an admonishment for sixth graders: “Warning! Going on this ride could change your life forever, result in lifelong poverty, heartache, pregnancy, disease, and even DEATH! … Once you have boarded this coaster, you have no control where it will take you. This roller coaster is premarital sex.”

Wagner said she did not recall that statement, and said no Nelson teachers reported anything controversial about the Worth Your Wait lessons." (Brian McNeill, The Daily Progress, April 27, 2007)