In last week’s installment of Great Moments in Public Education, we saw one teacher foisting Brokeback Mountain on students in one classroom and another school faking a surprise gun attack on sixth-graders. This week, it’s Sex, Drugs, and CYA at a public school in Boulder, Colorado (hat tip: Linda) The Denver Post reports on a recent assembly at Boulder High School in which a panelist encouraged students to engage in sex and drug use. His comments were met with laughter from fellow panelists and cheers from the audience:

School officials here are re-evaluating their policies for allowing panels from the University of Colorado’s Conference on World Affairs to be held at Boulder High School, after a parent and a student complained that a panel about teen sex and drug use was too graphic and permissive in tone.

The controversy stems from an April panel called “STDs: Sex, Teens and Drugs.” The discussion was dotted with frank talk and provocative comments about sex and drugs.

“I’m going to encourage you to have sex, and I’m going to encourage you to use drugs appropriately,” panelist Joel Becker, a Los Angeles clinical psychologist, told the students. “And why I am going to take that position is because you’re going to do it anyway.”

The assembly was taped. Students were required to attend. KHOW radio talk show Caplis and Silverman have audio of the panel.

Now, get this. When a mother and daughter complained about the remarks and read from a transcript of the assembly during a school board meeting, they were chastised–and told to stop reading what the panelists said because the school board members deemed it “inappropriate:”

Boulder High sophomore Daphne White and her mother, Priscilla, complained to the Boulder Valley school board last week about the panel, saying that the high school should not host events that tell students it is OK to use drugs and have sex.

“The panel discussion was a completely irresponsible and dangerous invitation to Boulder High students to have sex and take drugs,” Daphne told the board.

At one point, school board president Helayne Jones told Priscilla White to stop reading excerpts from the panel discussion because the language was inappropriate for the meeting.

“But it was at Boulder High School,” Priscilla White responded. “If they can listen to it, I think you can listen to it.”

Board members agreed some of the language was inappropriate and asked officials to investigate.

Another parent assailed the school administration’s CYA tactics in the matter.

The organizers say they were just speaking “candidly.”

Is the Have Sex and Take Drugs brigade coming to your kids’ school next?

Here are the panelists who appeared at the sex & drugs assembly:

Joel L. Becker
Andee Gerhardt
Antonio Sacre
Sanho Tree

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