Christian Impact News

HITCHCOCK, Texas -- A Hitchcock school district board member says she regrets that a planned TAKS pep talk at Crosby Middle School on Jan. 15 became, instead, a discussion about sex. 

Board Member Shirley Price told the Galveston County Daily News that she was talking about distractions to students, such as sex, when the girls started asking questions. She answered candidly, including explaining certain sex acts, the paper reported.

"Lesson learned on my part,” Price said. “[It was the] wrong time to discuss it."

She said she was just trying to make a point to the group of students, which included fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth-grade girls.

"Don't let anyone talk you into any sexual activity," she said.

Loria Watkins, a sixth-grade student, said she heard the talk first-hand.

“We think she was speaking the truth, because it does happen around the schools,” Loria said.   

The impromptu talk received a variety of reactions from parents.

“Parents should've been, should've been, given the choice to opt out.  I’m all for sex education, but do it right,” Melody Short said.

Short said she thinks the students are now having “conversations about things they just shouldn't know about [at] that age.”

 Virginia Woodard strongly disagreed and pointed to TV and music programming to make her point.

 “These children know about sex already, baby,” Woodard said. “This generation here is way ahead of the last one.  The parents are in denial.”

Randy Dowdy, Hitchcock I.S.D.’s director of student services, said he doesn't know whether a teacher or administrator tried to stop Price’s talk.  He said the school board would take up the matter at the next regularly scheduled meeting in February.

Dowdy shared the letter that went home to parents last Friday, a week after the incident. 

"Once assembled the speaker asked the principal to leave the presentation,” the letter said. “During the presentation, very sensitive and sexually specific information was shared with the students."

The letter also indicated that parents should have had a choice to opt their child out of the discussion.