Sex Education and Teen Pregnancy Prevention -   Efforts by proponents of comprehensive sex education failed to receive final support by the end of the session. Although $500,000 was in the proposed Democratic budget for the Healthy Teens program, no new funding was created due to budget concerns.

 Background: Two bills were initially  raised related to teen sexual education in public schools. Both pieces of legislation are almost identical and severely flawed. Both of the bills would have both allocated $1 million dollars to local school boards to increase the teaching of comprehensive sex education. The primary supporter of the legislation was Planned Parenthood. The Conference believes abstinence education should be the primary focus of any sexuality education program. The original language in the bill would also allow the money to pass-through the local boards of education to organizations, such as Planned Parenthood, to teach programs in our public schools.

 H.B. 5591- An Act Concerning Healthy Teens was voted out of the Education Committee with several modifications recommended by the Catholic Conference. These changes help to insure money is used for curriculum development and any use of the money is approved by the local boards of education. These changes help deter the money from going to outside organizations, and insure that the boards of education and parents have more knowledge and input on what is actually being taught in the classrooms.  State guidelines already allow both abstinence and comprehensive sex education to be taught in public schools. It is left to the determination of each board of education as to what items should be included. The Conference’s action help insure local control. The Bill was also voted out of the  Appropriations Committee. Only  $500,000, not $1 million, was included in the Appropriations Committee’s budget.  S.B. 461 – An Act Concerning Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Programs  was completely rewritten and voted out of the Public Health Committee. The changes focused on prevention of teen pregnancy through other programs, not  just on sex education in local schools, which was the original focus of the bill. The Conference testified against the original bill as written. The rewritten bill  was acceptable to the Catholic Conference. The bill died in the  Appropriations Committee.