Nevermind Education: Condoms for free at 22 city schools

Dec. 26, 2012

The district is installing dispensers over winter break at high schools with the highest rates of STDs.

Coming over the holiday break to about a third of Philadelphia high schools: clear plastic dispensers chock-full of free condoms.

The dispensers will be placed in the 22 high schools whose students had the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases, and condoms will be available to any student - so long as their parents did not sign a form opting them out of the program.

It's a pilot designed to address "an epidemic of sexually transmitted disease in adolescents in Philadelphia," said Donald F. Schwarz, the deputy mayor for health and opportunity. Since April 2011, the city has given away about four million condoms, and now, STD rates are falling.


But, Schwarz pointed out, 25 percent of new HIV infections in Philadelphia are teens, and that's a major worry.

Some city high schools - the dozen that have "health resource centers" - already dispense free condoms. And the Health Department also provides them at city high schools when they go in to test teens for STDs, as they do every year voluntarily with a parent's consent.

The pilot is the next logical step, Schwarz said.

"I support the policy strongly," said Mayor Nutter. "This is a serious public health matter."

Peg Devine, school nurse at Lincoln High - which is not a participant in the pilot program - said she supported making condoms available to sexually active students. But she worries about the ability of already-stretched nurses to juggle one more task.

Two of the schools in the pilot - Dobbins and High School of the Future - do not have full-time nurses.

In an e-mail to nurses, Philadelphia School District officials said that the dispensers would be installed "just inside the doorway near the entrance to your office" and that nurses were not to be charged with managing access.

"Opt-out letters are to be maintained by the school office," Assistant Superintendent Dennis W. Creedon wrote. "Students are to honor the wishes of their parents. If a student disrespects their guardian's directive, that is an issue of the home."

Still, Devine said, "I just can't imagine the parents of a 14-year-old being happy with this."

Nutter, himself the parent of a Philadelphia School District high schooler, said it was a necessary move.

source: Philadelphia Inquirer