Oregon School Now Offering Condoms ... to 6th Graders

Medical groups have long advocated making condoms available in schools, and one Oregon district is taking that advice—even if it means making them available to especially young students. The Gervais School District board voted unanimously last month to make condoms available to students from grade six on up, the LA Times reports. Students will have to ask for the birth control specifically, however, and have a talk with a counselor, teacher, or administrator first.

The plan sounds less extreme when you realize that the tiny district basically treats its middle and high schools as one establishment, and hence put the same rules in place for both. A survey last spring found that 42% of the high school's students "never" or "sometimes" use protection, and officials tell the Statesman Journal that nine students became pregnant last year. Still, some parents are uneasy about the plan. "I don't know how to feel," one told KGW. "Somebody talking to my children and giving them a condom, at that age, I don’t know." (More Oregon stories.)