By James Rincon

Pflag Reporter

This school year has all but come to a close, but last week the yearbook committee at Pflugerville High School stirred one last controversy to end the year with a bang.

Two pages in the PHS yearbook covering teen sex, pregnancy and drugs apparently offended one parent so much she contacted most local media outlets with the story. She probably also ensured that if area high schoolers hadn’t seen the alleged inappropriate content, they have now.

The pages contain a feature on two students that will soon be parents, entitled “Teen parents-to-be share positive outlook despite unexpected circumstance.”

There are also results from a poll that asked “What is your opinion on sex?” which tallied student answers under the categories “I’m waiting for marriage,” “I’m waiting for a serious relationship,” “It’s no big deal to have sex” and “I feel pressured to have sex.”

There was information about the regularity of student drinking and a section called “Street Smarts,” which had several student answers to the question “What’s the strangest name you’ve heard a drug be referred to as?”

So what is the controversy? The parent argued that these issues don’t have a place in a yearbook, but isn’t the point of a yearbook to help remind us of our high school years? The students know better than anyone what interests and issues occupy their collective consciousness. If sex, booze and drugs are among those interests and issues, why shouldn’t that be explored? The yearbook committee, the student group that approved the publication along with faculty advisors including the school principal, addressed these very real issues in a mature and scientific way – far more mature than the tactic of sweeping them under the rug and pretending they don’t exist.

If a parent thinks the mature dialogue about sex and drugs and alcohol presented in the PHS yearbook should be censored, those parents have a lot of work ahead of them. Go look up the lyrics to Lady Gaga’s song “Disco Stick” – an international No. 1 hit – or the lyrics to 95 percent of songs by high schoolers’ favorite rappers Drake or Lil’ Wayne, who get constant radio play – then re-evaluate what you think your 17-year-old has been exposed to when it comes to sex and drugs. Watch the movie “Superbad,” a film that grossed more than $121 million in the United States and Canada written by a high schooler for high schoolers about high school; if you thought this yearbook deserved statewide media attention, then you better go call the National Guard.

Pflugerville ISD may have put it best when they issued a statement standing by their school, teachers and students that said, “The Pflugerville High School yearbook is a publication written by students for students, and reflects the issues and trends at PHS in a given year. Each yearbook is a unique representation of the school’s student body.”

There is nothing on those two pages that promotes teen sex, drug use or underage drinking. They simply don’t hide the fact that those things were, in various ways, as much a part of the high school experience as football games and honors societies. If anything they open a discussion about sex, drug and alcohol that can be used to educate kids and prepare them as they move out on their own to college or the workforce – a discussion kids start having with each other in middle school – a discussion that kids who have the necessary tools to make mature, informed decisions had with their parents years before they got their yearbook senior year.