Sex Education Banned in Public School Buildings Owned by Catholic Church

By Corinne Lestch And Ben Chapman
New York Daily News
May 24, 2013

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/sex-ed-banned-catholic-church-owned-school-buildings-article-1.1309911

Kids have to take a 15-minute walk away from Brooklyn’s El Puente Academy for sex ed.

Thou shalt not teach public school students sex education — or give them lessons on HIV and AIDS — in classrooms owned by the Catholic Church.

As a result of a longstanding but little-known agreement between church and city officials, dozens of city schools that lease church-owned buildings must take students off site for sex education.

The unusual arrangement rankles some parents and students who believe students should get sex ed and lessons about HIV/AIDS — which are mandated by law — in their home classrooms.

“It’s crazy,” said Tayshawn Edmonds, 15, of Brooklyn, a 10th-grader at El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice in Williamsburg. The school is housed in a church building on Hooper St. that it rents for $649,000 a year.

To receive annual sex ed lessons, Edmonds and his classmates must trek across the neighborhood to El Puente’s offices at 211 S. Fourth St. The trip takes about 15 minutes on foot.

“The church owns the building, so they call the shots,” said Tayshawn. “But I don’t see why they get to control what we’re doing at our school.”

The city has rented space for public schools from the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn since 2005. The church’s no-sex-ed policy has always been in place.

The relationship gives the city access to needed classrooms and provides revenue for the cash-strapped Catholic Church at a time when parochial school enrollment is declining.

This year the city Education Department will pay more than $27 million in rent for 40 public schools housed in parochial school buildings. And when it comes time for required sex ed instruction, kids at those schools go off site to facilities owned by the city or to local nonprofits.

Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said the church’s prohibition on sex education and HIV/AIDS instruction has never caused problems. “We have dozens and dozens of sites with the diocese and archdiocese, and that’s predicated on being responsible and following the tenets of the church,” said Walcott.

State law enacted in 1987 requires city schools to administer lessons on HIV/AIDS to every student in each grade at least once a year. In 2011, city officials mandated sex ed lessons, as well, for all students in either sixth or seventh grade, and again in either ninth or 10th grade.

City parochial schools require sex ed lessons starting in the seventh grade that are aligned with church teachings that favor abstinence.

Church officials say they are within their rights to banish the city’s sex ed and HIV/AIDS instruction from their buildings — and they have no plans to change.

“It is an arrangement that has been working well for both sides for years, and one we intend to continue,” said Diocese of Brooklyn spokeswoman Stefanie Gutierrez.

But the policy is unpopular with parents, who argue the church oversteps its bounds by forcing tenant schools to take students off the premises for mandated lessons.

“I can’t see how a church is going to tell you about what to teach,” said Lisa Smith, 45, of Harlem, whose daughter attends Thurgood Marshall Academy Lower School, which rents a church building in Washington Heights.

clestch@nydailynews.com and bchapman@nydailynews.com