School Health Advisory Councils (SHACs) are legally required in every Texas school district to make recommendations to local school boards regarding health policy in their schools. SHACs were originally created so that local community values could be represented in sex education in the school district. However, more recently SHACs have been making recommendations concerning all health related issues in schools, such as physical education, substance abuse, nutrition, safety, school environment, fitness, hygiene, mental health, but rarely sexual health. 

Recently, I have been attending School Health Advisory Council (SHAC) meetings for Austin Independent School District. What I have seen leaves much to be desired from the eyes of a sex education advocate. Sex education has been mentioned once, in a small group, when I brought it up. While it is obvious that we are facing health issues such as obesity, depression, and substance abuse, it is not acceptable to cut out sexual health or stop at a day of abstinence.

Texas currently has the 3rd highest teen birth rate in the country, and although our ranking has gone down since we were number one, our teen birth rate has actually increased to 63 births per 1000 females ages 15-19. Clearly, we have a serious problem on our hands. Texas claims to be handling our high teen birth rate by teaching abstinence-only education in public schools. Unfortunately, abstinence-only education leaves out information about condoms, contraception, healthy relationships, anatomy, sexually transmitted diseases, and pregnancy. Further, abstinence-only education regularly includes medically inaccurate information, conservative religious views, shame and fear based tactics, and gender stereotypes.

Texas needs to start taking unintended teen pregnancy seriously by offering a full comprehensive, medically accurate sex education to teens. Although sex education won't solve the problem alone, it is the first step. Until we offer the information teens need to make responsible, healthy, and safe decisions about their bodies, our teen birth rate will only continue to increase.