Cda To Get Grant For Abstinence Ed

The Coeur d’Alene School District is one of eight in the state that will receive grants to pay for abstinence-based sex education.

District nurse Terri Ethridge applied for the $2,400 grant, which will be used to pay for a September workshop for teachers. They will learn “age-appropriate” lessons to teach children how to avoid sexually transmitted disease, including HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The Idaho Department of Education is awarding $80,000, which it received from the National Centers for Disease Control.

State Superintendent Anne Fox caused a stir this winter when she insisted that the grants be available only for abstinence-based programs. Critics said other methods of prevention should be taught. Legislators questioned whether Fox was trying to dictate policy to local schools.

Fox responded by saying that school districts are free to teach other prevention methods, such as condom use, but not in programs that used the grant money.

The Coeur d’Alene grant will be spent on workshop preparation, speakers, orientation packages for new employees, videos and other promotional material.

Ethridge, recently hired as the district’s first full-time nurse, said abstinence will be the basis of all sex education in which she is involved.

The other school districts that received grants were Moscow, Lewiston, Kimberly, Grangeville, Jerome and Minidoka.

, DataTimes