Trial and Error Can Be Sex-Ed Too, Right?

Last year, toward the end of one class period, my disruptive student B started singing, as I was trying to get class going on something about grammar.
"Let's talk about sex, ba-by, let's talk about you and me..."
And I said, for shock value, "Okay, do you want to?" Thinking it would embarrass him enough to get him to stop and focus.
Nope.
"Yeah!" he nodded, excitedly. And other kids joined him in agreement. Not obnoxiously though, which surprised me. They just really were interested.
I don't remember what we started on, but I wound up showing them a Wikipedia diagram of the female and male reproductive organs, and fielding a few legitimate questions about sperm and eggs and missing periods.
We only had something like 8 minutes, and after the bell rang I sat there, so surprised and impressed with the maturity they showed in their questions, and flabbergasted at how basic their questions were- how little they seemed to know.

Later I asked my assistant principal if and when the students were officially taught about reproductive health, saying that my class had gone off track for a few minutes, but it went really well, that they were really polite and curious- and scarily uninformed. His face went severe as he warned me to "Be very, very careful." He warned that in Louisiana, only certified science teachers are allowed to teach anything about sex, and that if any of my students complained and their parents called the school-board, I could be fired quite easily. "They get sex-ed with the science teachers in the spring."

My first year I knew one seventh grader who had a baby- this year at least two more have had kids. (It was quite strange seeing one of my students every day, just two months behind me in her pregnancy.)

They may not know how it works, but they know how to do it.

So a couple of days ago, I see one of the science teachers in the lounge. (She's making copies, I'm putting breast-milk in the freezer.) I ask her when the kids start on sex-ed.
"Oh, get this," she starts. (She's a fellow co-miserator in the frustrating limits of my school.) "We have one teacher who refuses to teach it [I think she is the same woman who, unhappy that she had been transferred to T, refused to set up her classroom at the beginning of the year], and since Ms. Reydams is a long-term sub, and not certified in science, she's not allowed to teach it, which means all the sixth and seventh-graders, except for one class, aren't gonna get it."

This literally made me nauseous. Out of all the crap and politics and teaching-to-the-test knowledge and skills we teach, here is something legitimate, something that has serious, immediate, application for the kids, something they're interested in and genuinely- for reasons of personal and public health- NEED to learn, and we're not going to teach them.

At this moment I felt powerless in Louisiana.

My students have become better writers, and I see other effects on many of the kids I've taught- especially those I've had for multiple years, but I still am frustrated with how little of an impact I can actually make as a classroom teacher. I'm not even sure at this point I want to stay in schools. The present public school- at least in Jefferson Parish- is a far cry from the ideal of truly sharing knowledge and encouraging the development of independent and critical thought. I'll stop myself here before heading down a slippery slope, and just say I'm looking forward to taking at least next year to be out of the classroom and think a little more about what angle this issue could be best addressed from.

Meanwhile, the kids will just get their sex-ed from pop culture. And we all know how accurate, respectful, and healthy the media's portrayal of sex is.

Oh man.