Recently, the high school administration has hired two different groups: Freedom from Chemical Dependency (FCD), a drug-use prevention organization that employs recovering addicts, and Planned Parenthood, which provides a sex education class.

Kudos to the school for bringing drug and sex talks, as they are crucial in any high school. However, one talk is enough!

The school's initial agreement with both FCD and Planned Parenthood was to focus on extensive education every other year. Consequently, freshmen and juniors had four days of drug talks, while sophomores and seniors spent only one day with FCD during their week here. In the Planned Parenthood week, seniors and sophomores had four days of sex education, while juniors and freshmen had none.

The junior class experienced the second round of week-long FCD sessions for the first time in December.

Three years ago, recovering addicts Alex and Dave spoke to the then-freshmen about subjects ranging from past usage to the rise of new, popular drugs. Their goal was to dissuade freshmen from using drugs, as both had started abusing drugs by their sophomore year.

This year, only Alex returned. However, his presentation on his experiences and "new" drugs was exactly the same.

The second week-long session was so much like the first that it was not worth the juniors' time.

In an e-mail interview, FCD's senior vice-president said that "while a tremendous number of student comments we have received are very positive, and even heartwarming, a few (three, to be exact) did mention repetitiveness."

Yet an Octagon poll showed that 47 percent of juniors felt that the second round of drug talks was repetitive while the seniors were split evenly at 50 percent (see poll results).

In their contract with the school, FCD promised to vary classes from year to year.

If the administration is paying for a program that takes away from class time (especially AP class time), they need to make sure that nearly every student learns something valuable in each lecture or at least is presented the information in a new way.

The Planned Parenthood seminars suffered from the same problems. Sixty-nine percent of the senior class said, in a Octagon poll, that Planned Parenthood was repetitive.

Both week-long sessions, this year and two years ago, focused mainly on contraceptive devices and educating students about sexually transmitted diseases.

However, Planned Parenthood did mildly change their presentation a bit between two years ago and this year for seniors.

"Two years ago, they focused on scare tactics by showing us pictures of [sexually transmitted diseases]," a senior said. "This year, they accepted that we are more prone to have sex and taught us how to be safe."

Although more students claimed the Planned Parenthood presentation was beneficial, the repetitiveness of these programs is a problem.

Rather than having these education programs for two week-long sessions, a student should have the week-long session once as an underclassman. Upperclassmen could then spend one day reviewing information.

The FCD spokesperson said the curriculum can be adjusted. "Within the span of ages we teach and schools we serve, it is possible for our teams and lessons to be varied from year to year."

We suggest they do just that.