New school plan offered to limit contraceptives

PORTLAND – The Portland School Committee is being offered a compromise that sets a minimum age and gives parents greater control over access to prescription birth control offered at a middle school health clinic.

The proposal by committee member Benjamin Meiklejohn would give parents the option of blocking access to prescription contraceptives if they enroll their children in the clinic. It also would limit contraceptives to students who are at least 14.

As it stands, children need parental permission to be treated at the clinic at King Middle School. Once at the clinic, however, state law allows the students to receive confidential care for reproductive health, mental health and substance abuse issues.

Meiklejohn said some committee members urged him to delay his resolution to avoid fanning the flames after a wave of national media coverage. But he told the Portland Press Herald that the issue is so divisive that it needs to be dealt with.

“We should bring some resolution to this issue as soon as possible,” said Meiklejohn, one of two board members who voted against providing prescription birth control.

The committee’s 7-2 vote last week would make King the first middle school in Maine to offer a full range of contraception, including both pills and the patch, in grades six to eight, when most students are 11 to 13 years old, school officials said.

The vote has prompted a Republican-led effort to recall the seven committee members who supported the measure. School committee elections in this overwhelmingly Democratic city are nonpartisan.

King’s health center, which is operated by the city’s Public Health Division, already has provided condoms since 2000.

John Coyne, School Committee chairman, said he wants to run Meiklejohn’s proposal by the legal department before it goes before the committee.

“If we can figure out the legal issues around this decision, maybe we can come up with something a little more palatable to me and others.”