Attention teen girls: you are required to take pregnancy tests in school if at any time you are suspected of being pregnant. Should you refuse to take this mandatory test, or turn out to actually be pregnant you will be forced to leave school. Actually, don’t worry. This will only apply to Delhi Charter School in Louisiana!

   Well now that all just sounds a little ridiculous (and illegal?) so it can’t really be true, right? But in fact, shockingly enough this really happening, and this Louisiana K-8 school has been receiving major heat in the media about their “student pregnancy policy. You can read a little more about here.

   Also, as another article points out here, Delhi Charter School’s “student pregnancy policy states that the school seeks to ensure that students ‘exhibit acceptable character traits’—and in order to do so, allows the school to force any ‘suspected student’ to take a pregnancy test.” The article also explains how, “The ACLU notes that this policy is a clear violation of Title IX–which, among many other wonderful things, explicitly protects pregnant and parenting teens’ right to education–and the equal protection clause of the constitution.” To me, this whole situation called to mind the Hurst, Brown, and L’Engle (2008) article we read on how “Boys Will Be Boys and Girls Better Be Prepared…”. The school’s tactics to promote an “acceptable” learning environment for their students evidently “ambiguously and/or inaccurately reinforce traditional gender stereotypes that males seek sex and females are responsible for protection against pregnancy.” (Hurst et al., 2008). Further, the boys in this school are plainly unaffected by this school policy. If they’re truly trying to justly promote an ideal learning environment for all students, shouldn’t they be equally subjecting boys to some kind of spontaneous DNA testing do determine in the words of Maury Povitch, “You Are/Are Not The Father!”? I guess not.

   But apparently this school thinks that blatantly imposing old school shaming tactics against pregnant/potentially pregnant/virtually any girl in the school is an appropriate and effective way to address sexually active teenagers (which by the way, obviously not all of these K-8 girls even are). Through their actions, this school seems to be perpetuating the notion that teen sexual activity is something incredibly taboo. But if some of them are sexually active, is this really anything new? As Hurst et al. (2008) points out, “The media are important sources of sexual information for adolescents…”. Hurst et al., (2008)’s explanation that, “Many parents, however, still find it difficult to talk with their children about sex, and schools are increasingly limited in what they may say about sex, as many have turned to abstinence-only education.” also sounds a lot like the Dehli Charter School’s position on things. But “…the media are important sources of sexual information as well as norms about inappropriate and appropriate behavior and what other teens are doing sexually (Brown, Halpern, & L’Engle, 2005; Brown, Steele, & Walsh-Childers, 2012).” (Hurst et al., 2008). 

Everyone's Favorite
Pregnant Cheerleader:
Glee's Quin Fabray

   By 2012 we have been able to watch plenty of popular shows and films that focus on teen pregnancy. Some of these examples include but are not limited to: MTV’s shows Teen Mom, Teen Mom 2, 16 and Pregnant, Fox’s show Glee and the popular movie Juno. All of these feature teenage mothers/mom’s-to-be as lead characters. Even if Delhi Charter School wants to sweep teenage pregnancy under the rug, the fact of the matter is that teen sexual activity and pregnancy have been and will continue to have multimedia coverage. While it is apparent that not all media coverage is realistic in their glamorized portrayals, this should serve as motivation to implement more primary prevention sexual health education among adolescents. The “media plays a major educational role” as Delgado and Austin (2007) point out in their research article, but “parents can play an important role in their children’s sex education” too (Delgado & Austin, 2007). It would be more advantageous for schools like Delhi to work with media resources to promote better sexual health for their students (therein promoting a healthier educational environment for girls and boys alike). We’ll just have to stay tuned to see if their recent negative media attention will promote change in a positive direction or not. Here’s to hoping!