Photo by Mr. T in DC

The District is one of two jurisdictions in the country that requires an HPV vaccine for sixth-grade girls, and now the city’s public schools will start testing students on human sexuality, contraception and drug use.

The Post’s Bill Turque reports that D.C. public school officials have developed a 50-question standardized test that will be give to students in fifth, eighth and tenth grade once a year. The test will give a broader picture of what students know and try to explain why they act the was they do, writes Turque. He notes:

A 2009 District study found that nearly half of the city’s chlamydia and gonorrhea diagnoses were among District residents 15 to 19 years old. Two-thirds of all diagnoses were among those younger than 24. Also, more than 3 percent of District residents older than 12 were living with HIV or AIDS in 2009, the report said.

Potential questions for the test, which the Post also has, would also cover issues such as health and nutrition.

In 2008, the D.C. State Board of Education adopted new standards for instruction on issues like STDs and HIV/AIDS, while a 2009 focus group of public school students found that they weren’t particularly impressed with the District’s sexual education curriculum and unhappy with the brand of condoms distributed by the D.C. Department of Health. (Last year they switched from Durex to Trojan.)

The test hasn’t yet provoked any widespread controversy, but there are complaints over yet more testing for students and over how explicitly sensitive issues like sexual education and drug use should be addressed in public schools. Some groups in the District have pushed for more abstinence education.