Federal Abstinence Funds Available to N.C. Schools

Story

Federal Abstinence Funds Available to N.C. Schools

Special Report - November 27, 2007
The N.C. Department of Public Instruction has notified public school Superintendents and Abstinence Until Marriage Program Coordinators across North Carolina that federal abstinence funds for the first quarter of 2007-08 are available. J.B. Buxton, Deputy State Superintendent of Public Instruction, sent a memo on November 20, 2007, which states that federal Title V funds must be obligated by December 31, 2007 and liquidated by March 31, 2008. In past years, the U.S. Congress has appropriated $50 million annually in federal abstinence funds to the states. However, it has threatened three times this year to cut off federal abstinence funds but has later extended the funds for one more quarter. The present extension is only valid for the first quarter of the 2007-08 fiscal year, but it is reported that an extension for the entire year is being sought.

North Carolina law requires public schools to teach that abstinence until marriage is the expected standard for all school aged children and that abstinence is the only certain way to avoid unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. The federal Title V program was modeled after North Carolina’s abstinence until marriage education law and helps to fund our State’s abstinence education requirement, as the State Legislature has not appropriated any funding for abstinence education.