In Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA), you have the option to compete. When you compete, you choose a competition and develop a project/topic. I chose to partake in the Public Policy Advocate competition. For my topic, I decided to research the extent to which sex education truly impacts students. I came to discover just how important a comprehensive sex education is for high schoolers.

In my research, I discovered that the KRS does not require a sex education and actually says to focus on abstinence. Abstinence-only education in schools has done nothing to lessen teen pregnancy rates in Kentucky or nationally. This is especially concerning as teenagers have become increasingly more sexually active. A study revealed that 20-24% of 15-year-olds are sexually active, 53% of 17-year-olds are sexually active, and 60%-77% of 19-year-olds are sexually active. Planned Parenthood and the Guttmacher Institute both state that a thorough sex education lessens teen pregnancy, so why not implement a thorough education?

To prepare high schoolers for the future, there are classes on saving money and buying responsibly, cooking, and caring for children. There are even classes on topics specific to our future careers. When it comes to classes on our health and questions that high schoolers often have, teens are left to figure it out on their own and risk receiving wrong information. So far, on a multiselect question in the survey I am conducting, 50% of the responses say they get their information on sex and health from social media, while 73% said they get their information from friends. Are these the sources teenagers should get their information from?

I am calling for a much more in-depth and comprehensive education on matters of health and sex in our schools so that we can prepare our teens for the future.