MY GOALS FOR THIS WEEK:
Finish writing my bill and opening letter and send them out.
MY MENTOR:
I sent my bill to my mentor for her to review. I will not send the bill in until it we have been able to talk about it and she approves.
MY RESEARCH:
This week while I was writing my opening letter I wanted to know the STD rates in Texas over the past few years, especially after reading comments from state senators about how we shouldn't change sex education because pregnancies have been steadily decreasing. (My stance on this being that pregnancy is only slowly decreasing, at that there are still many pregnancies that can be prevented with better education). So I found all of the Texas Surveillance studies here: https://sph.uth.edu/charting/sti.htm These studies show that rates of sexually transmitted diseases, HIV, and AIDS have been either been stagnant for a number of years, or increasing.
I also found a copy of a bill Senator Ellis (D-Harris) filed in 2013 that proposed some changes to the sex education policy in the Education Code (http://kut.org/post/comprehensive-sex-ed-proposed-response-texas-abortion-debate) for the 2013-2014 school year. Although this bill did not get past the committee (http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/BillLookup/BillStages.aspx?LegSess=832&Bill=SB26), it served as a good example for me, and assured me that my bill would possibly be looked at.
For a full look at Texas' Education Code, go here: http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/?link=ED
MY GOALS FOR NEXT WEEK:
Do research on teen and parent opinion on how sex education should be covered/how the class should be structured to help with writing lesson plans later on.
Finish writing my bill and opening letter and send them out.
MY MENTOR:
I sent my bill to my mentor for her to review. I will not send the bill in until it we have been able to talk about it and she approves.
MY RESEARCH:
This week while I was writing my opening letter I wanted to know the STD rates in Texas over the past few years, especially after reading comments from state senators about how we shouldn't change sex education because pregnancies have been steadily decreasing. (My stance on this being that pregnancy is only slowly decreasing, at that there are still many pregnancies that can be prevented with better education). So I found all of the Texas Surveillance studies here: https://sph.uth.edu/charting/sti.htm These studies show that rates of sexually transmitted diseases, HIV, and AIDS have been either been stagnant for a number of years, or increasing.
I also found a copy of a bill Senator Ellis (D-Harris) filed in 2013 that proposed some changes to the sex education policy in the Education Code (http://kut.org/post/comprehensive-sex-ed-proposed-response-texas-abortion-debate) for the 2013-2014 school year. Although this bill did not get past the committee (http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/BillLookup/BillStages.aspx?LegSess=832&Bill=SB26), it served as a good example for me, and assured me that my bill would possibly be looked at.
For a full look at Texas' Education Code, go here: http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/?link=ED
MY GOALS FOR NEXT WEEK:
Do research on teen and parent opinion on how sex education should be covered/how the class should be structured to help with writing lesson plans later on.