According to numbers from the Northeast Health District — an arm of the Georgia Division of Public Health — between 2000 and 2004, 73 of every 1,000 girls age 15 to 19 in Jackson County were pregnant or had already delivered a child. In 2004, his Northeast Health District surveyed 2,054 students from grades seven through 12 at East Jackson Middle, West Jackson Middle and Jackson County Comprehensive High Schools, some 87 percent of the enrolled population in those schools. Those numbers can be compared to additional surveys — in 1999, 84 percent of 542 randomly-sampled adults in Jackson County said they believe it is wrong for unmarried teenagers to be sexually active, but 86 percent said that if teens are sexually active, they should use birth control. Taken together, the surveys — overlooking the five-year divide between both — mean that although most parents believe sexually-active teens should use birth control, some 33 percent of students are using either no method, or they are using withdrawal, the least reliable and most dangerous method. April Howard, director of curriculum and accountability for Jackson County School System, says the school system is doing everything it can — and everything the state curriculum mandates — to educate students about sexual activity and the inherent risks of disease and pregnancy therein. Beth Heath, Jackson County nurse manager, says county clinics, in Jefferson and Commerce, allow both teenagers and parents to learn more about the risks of sexual activity before marriage. read more

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