We as parents, teachers, students, caregivers and medical professionals ask the Springfield Public Schools to change their sex education program from the currently utilized "Choosing the Best" abstinence-centered, fear-based and medically questionable program to a more comprehensive, proven program using the guidelines recommended by SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States) as a guide in evaluating and selecting an appropriate program. Instructions for evaluating the quality of an existing or potential sexual education curricula can be found starting on page 86 of the SIECUS guidelines.

As concerned parents, teachers, caregivers and medical professions, we make this request based on the two important pieces of information below:

1. There are two "medical" groups who are listed as endorsing the "medical accuracy" of the information provided in the Choosing the Best program. The Medical Institute for Sexual Health (MISH) & the American College of Pediatricians (ACP). Both groups are socially conservative professional member groups made up of a very small minority (less than 1/10th of 1%) of professionals in their fields. MISH is responsible for the "Facts About Youth" website which promotes change therapy for homosexuality and other very harmful and completely false "facts" about homosexuality. The group has been labeled by several sources as a hate group and the American Academy of Pediatrics has worked with 13 other organizations including the American Counseling Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association and the American School Counselor Association with more than 480,000 mental health professionals to create the "Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation and Youth" publication in direct response to the "FactsAboutYouth.org" website. The ACP is made up of 60-200 doctors (depending on source) who have also been outed as a hate group in multiple sources here and here and have been repeatedly called out as medically inaccurate as well. Dr. Francis Collins of the National Institutes for Health (NIH) specifically called out the ACP for providing misleading and incorrect information as part of their social agenda: NIH Director statement regarding American College of Pediatricians.

 2. Abstinence-only and abstinence "plus" programs (like choosing the best) that focus on abstinence and include abstinence or virginity pledges have been shown to be the least effectual in reducing STDs and teen pregnancy:

• NIH: Patient Teenagers? A Comparison of the Sexual Behavior of Virginity Pledgers and Matched Nonpledgers
• Abstinence Policies and Programs - Society of Adolescent Medicine
• CNN: Virginity Pledges
• Christianity Today: Virginity pledges ineffectual
• Virginity pledges & sexual health
• Impact of sexual education abstinence programs on teen pregnancy
• University of Georgia report - abstinence sex ed does not lead to abstinence
• Washington University study - virginity pledges lead to sexual confusion even after marriage

Please help us choose what's best for our students and provide them with proven, quality comprehensive sex education.