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Webb urges board to keep peer program in schools
TweetBy HAROLD GWIN
YOUNGSTOWN
Funding for a student peer program that combats teen pregnancy and drug abuse may have expired, but Superintendent Wendy Webb said she will do all she can to keep the program running in the city schools.
The “Promoting Student Intelligence” program has been running in the Youngstown schools for the past 10 years, said Lynn Duffey, who coordinates the program.
Funding has been through a federal Safe and Drug-Free Schools grant, but that funding source ended this year, she told the school board Tuesday, urging board members to keep the program alive. The program costs some $20,000 a year.
“Our objective is to save lives,” she said, pointing out that high school students involved in the program actually teach in sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade health classes, talking about sex, abstinence, HIV and AIDS.
Information coming from the students is more effective than from adults, said Jonnelle Ballard, a city school graduate and a PSI member in 2000-03.
PSI taught students how to make good decisions overall, not just about sex, Yvonne Townsend told the school board.
The city school graduate who is now a master’s degree candidate at the University of Kentucky said it made a big impact on her life, and she has tried to use what she learned to positively impact others.
Webb said she can’t make any promises based on the district’s financial issues but said she would never recommend cutting the PSI program.
She said she would look at re-allocating resources, if necessary, to keep it going.
Comments
Our objective is to save lives,” she said, pointing out that high school students involved in the program actually teach in sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade health classes, talking about sex, abstinence, HIV and AIDS.
BEAM ME UP!!!!!!
High schoolers teaching middle-schoolers sex education? Man, I am living in a world I don't recognize. Thank God I am playing the back nine!!!!
What I would hope the Youngstown City Schools would teach would be things like "What did Thomas Jefferson write?", "What is the length of the long side of a right triangle with a base of 4 and a rise of 3?", or "what is the acceleration of an object in free-fall to easth?" But, instead we get condoms on cucumbers!!!!!!
Another example of money spent by the school to "attempt" to do what the parents should be doing, and both are failing. I love the comment that Webb would look at re-allocating resources, if necessary, to keep the program going. The interpretation of that comment is, "there is enough waste and fat around to pay for this if we need to."
It is too bad that every news article about the Youngstown City Schools generates such mean and bitter comments. Not every kid in the city schools is a juvenile delinquent. I've been involved with this "PSI" program for years. The idea is to reach the younger kids with strategies for making good decisions, but the older kids benefit too. They act as teachers, planning their presentations and doing research to stay up-to-date. The experience of getting up in front of others and speaking helps develop self-confidence that carries them on to college. Advising others to practice safe sex and abstinence reinforces their own committment to be responsible for their actions. Lessons learned in PSI spill over into many other areas of the students' lives.
"high school students involved in the program actually teach in sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade health classes, talking about sex, abstinence, HIV and AIDS."
WOW someone that is NOT in thier corrupt union teaching in front of a class room, do you think this might be a contract violation.
To jonnyquest- and yet the costs of the school district keep going up while the quality of education has sunk to the lowest level it can go. My personal comment is aimed at being realistic, not mean or bitter.
If your going to teach about sex in health class then show the effects of drug use and the consequences of leading that life. Between teenage pregnancies and drugs/robberies/guns it's getting way out of hand. Might as well teach them when there younger.
Palbubba
The low school ratings we see are a direct result of bad parents not teaching their children to behave correctly in the larger society. Most inner-city parents only prepare their kids to spend the rest of their lives wandering around the city streets trying to get over. Teachers try to teach them to respect adults and each other at the very same time mother or this week’s boyfriend is telling them every day to fight with the man. Although they should not have to, teachers feel that they have to try to give kids what they did not get at home. Teachers do it partially out of compassion and partially out of necessity. Without some guidance, the kids would be completely unteachable. Most but not all will learn poorly even with help. It is clearly the fault of a bad parent and a bad neighborhood. But, believe it or not, these kids will soon be the parents of the next generation, and it all starts again. It is ridiculous for the rest of us to have to do this, but so far nobody has found a way to force the parents of inner-city children to be real parents. That is the only real solution to the problem, but nobody has the cash or political will to control lousy parents. Our problem is, what will happen if we let the kids develop in the worst way? It is not realistic to say they should just die in the street. We are trying to save some of them.