Friday, April 1, 2016

Springtime for Student Safety


Recently you may have heard about the proposal to offer contraceptive-related services at Hillsboro’s School Based Health Centers.  However, local parent Nancy Hursh has spotted a shortcoming of this proposal:  how do we know that students will actually engage in sexual activity safely after receiving these services?   Thus, we need to go one step further, and offer Safe Sex Rooms.   As Nancy writes:

Yes, rejoice! You heard right. The rooms will come complete with top quality mattresses, heart shaped pillows, soft lighting, music of your choice, and of course a wide variety of contraceptive devices.  Now, when you get the urge in Algebra class,  you may simply raise your hand, and we’ll give you a hall pass. Just grab a partner, or two or three, and go on down to the “Free Safe Sex Room”.

As we get deeper into the planning of this groundbreaking new service, we are identifying many potential improvements.   For example, merely providing the room is not enough:  how can we ensure the safety of the resulting activities?  Thus, each Safe Sex Room will be accompanied by a viewing window, where a certified staff member will observe all activities and provide live feedback through a two-way audio system.  

However, just having staff members observe is wasting an educational opportunity:  shouldn’t other students be able to benefit from this feedback as well?   For this reason, we will be providing a live video feed, where any student logged onto the HSD network can also observe and listen, helping them to avoid mistakes of their own in this perilous domain.   A preliminary survey showed a surprisingly large proportion of the student body eager to take advantage of this opportunity; clearly the message of promoting Safe Sex is having a positive effect throughout the district.  

Please join us in advancing this proposal, and making Hillsboro a nationwide leader in this critically important arena.











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