School District No. 46 (SD46) plans to pull condom machines out of high schools because they’re no longer needed, according to the board.
The machines have been in high school bathrooms for nearly 30 years, but they haven’t been stocked for quite some time.
Instead, for the past few years, students have been invited to take free condoms from a basket in the counsellor’s office.
During the Feb. 8 school board meeting, the director of instruction and student support services, Vanessa White, told trustees that staff wished to repeal the condom machine regulation.
“It is very old. It was written in 1996 and things have changed quite a bit in our schools since that time,” White said.
“The regulation was originally written in order to allow PACs to request condom machines to be put into schools. It stated that condom machines would not be stocked or supervised by schools, but it didn’t actually say who would stock and supervise them.”
The regulation also has references to posting AIDS awareness information beside condom machines, which White said is unwarranted as “prevention education programs” are part of the sexual education curriculum in SD46.
“What’s happening in real life practice is public health nurses are providing us the condoms in baskets free for students just to take any time they want and they’re usually in the councillor’s office,” White said.
“It’s a much more organic, grassroots way of dealing with it and students don’t use the machines so they’re sitting empty in the schools.”
Trustees seemed onboard with repealing the old condom machine regulation, but not without assurances a new regulation could be put in place if the mindset changes in the future and condoms are no longer available in counsellors’ offices.
Trustee Dave Mewhort also wanted to be sure students who were shy about wanting condoms could still pick them up anonymously.
“In the two high schools I know, they are in a very discreet location in the counsellor’s room in a basket,” White assured.
“You can sort of walk by and pick one up and nobody would even know that you’ve taken one. And the students are in and out of those counselling rooms for course changes and a million different reasons.”
White also noted that students are made aware of the free condoms at school and in the community (at public health offices) by nurses who come to speak to classes as part of their sexual education curriculum.
With that, the board unanimously passed a motion to repeal the old condom regulation, which will lead to the removal of condom machines in SD46 high schools.
