Is sex education working?

"About my high school sex education - there was none," said Anthony Distler, 21, a student at Mt. Aloysius College in Cresson. "The old "If you have sex you will die" teachings taught me nothing. If high schools want to drop the number of teenage pregnancies and STDs, they need to start getting real about it."Distler, who is originally from Kersey and graduated from Elk County Catholic High School in St. Marys, is not alone in his disapproval for the amount of information he was given about sex. "I honestly don't even remember having sex ed. in high school," said Betsy Cheatle, 21, who is originally from St. Marys. "Sex is something that many teenagers take too lightly. When you're a teenager, or any age for that matter, contracting a STD is the least of your worries when you're in the heat of the moment, but the fact is that STDs are serious and people need to be properly informed."

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The Department of Health said the pregnancy rate among adolescents aged 15 to 17 per 1,000 females yield the following results in 2001 to 2005 in the area: 29.7 in Cameron County; 16.3 in Clearfield County; 10.6 in Elk County; 13.8 in Jefferson County; 14.1 in Clarion County; and 19.3 in Armstrong County.