Devin Knox is a junior at The University of Texas at Austin, who is studying in London until April. Originally from  Lubbock, Devin is now a member of the Texas Youth Leadership Council -– a project of Advocates for Youth and the Texas Freedom Network.

I recently emailed Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas about the issue of comprehensive sex education in schools and she actually gave a decent response.

While she did maintain, like any good Republican would, that abstinence until marriage should be the main thing stressed and its up to the parents to teach sex education, she stated that, “The federal government should support and be guided by the decisions of local school boards and teachers with regard to sex education.” and that I should contact local officials with my concerns.

This is something that is quite easy to do, especially in the State of Texas. This is because Texas requires every school district to have a School Health Advisory Council (SHAC), “A SHAC is a group of individuals representing segments of the community, appointed by the school district to serve at the district level, to provide advice to the district on coordinated school health programming and its impact on student health and learning.” The SHAC must be made up of a majority of people who are parents of students in the school district but they welcome other members of the community to join and offer their advice and expertise.

I, along with some of my colleagues from the Texas Freedom Network, have participated in these SHAC meetings in Austin. We are lucky to be operating in one of the few school districts in Texas that already teaches comprehensive sex education and the district is very accepting of new ideas. I, however, do feel that we were able to make their policy better.

The Austin Independent School District allowed the SHAC to evaluate the different
organizations that provided sex education to their students. These organizations put on a presentation for the SHAC and then we voted on which ones we thought the district should and should not use.

I truly feel that people can make a difference by joining SHACs. For this reason, I encourage people in Texas to join one in your local area and if you do not live in Texas to see if your state has a similar committee. It seems that unlikely by the current composition of the United States Congress that we are going to get anything achieved at the federal level so we must looking at different ways to help the young people of this country. Looking local is the best way to do this. It is easier to change policy locally and  its quicker to see results. We may not be able to change national policy at this current moment but if we are able to change the policies of just a few local school districts, we can make a huge difference in many people's lives.