Cathleen Allison/ Nevada Appeal Virginia City Middle School eighth-graders Cheyanne Smith, front, and Shawntay Hudson, both 14, work on personality-assessment exercises during a WAIT presentation Wednesday.
Having a 40-hour-a-week job is a long-term goal for Brittney Glasgow. The 15-year-old is already well on her way with plans to work full-time this summer at Wild Island in Sparks.
After Virginia City Middle School lets out, that is.
"I like to set goals for myself," said Brittney, who wore glittering eye shadow, a piercing through her lip and black jelly bracelets on her wrists at school last week. "It's important to see if you can make it to them."
Driving her to start a job is two other goals she wants to accomplish soon - visit a cousin who lives in the Midwest and buy some wheels.
"I have to save up for a car because I'll be 16 soon," she said.
Brittney wasn't the only eighth-grader at Virginia City Middle School considering goals last week. All her eighth-grade classmates in health class were working on their goals as part of an activity with Jessica Cowee, a health program specialist with the state health division, as she taught a program called WAIT.
"It's a positive youth-development program," Cowee explained. "The emphasis of it is waiting for sexual activity."
WAIT has been in use in the Storey County School District for the past three years after being adopted by the school board of trustees. A family-life curriculum is recommended to school boards in Nevada by a team of parents, staff and community members, as required by the Nevada Revised Statute.
While the program teaches abstinence and the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases, it also encourages teens to consider their goals in relation to negative behaviors.
Students wrote down some of their personal strengths, things they liked about themselves and recent accomplishments. Brittney said she also has a goal of finding a husband and having kids.
"I don't want to be single forever," she said. "If you're going to get married and have a kid, you need a way to support it."
One of the activities of WAIT was to try balancing the end of a broom in the palm of the hand - bristles toward the ceiling.
Two students tried it, and learned that looking at the base of the broom made it hard to balance it. But by focusing on the upward end, they were able to keep the broom more steady. Cowee asked students for what the broom could be a metaphor.
"That if you look into the future it's easy to keep your life stable," answered Hayden Harrower, 13.
Cowee also had students list the physical, intellectual, social and financial consequences of teenage sex. And after they discussed possible results, she explained that a long-term relationship can enhance intimacy between partners. Student Jackie Weinland, 13, said she liked what she was learning.
"Most of the stuff we know about sex is 'Don't do it,'" she said. "But she is telling us there are good things (about it), but only when it's in a healthy relationship."
School nurse Vicki Beaupre, who's worked for the district for 16 years, is an advocate of WAIT, a national curriculum out of Colorado.
"This is one of the best abstinence programs I've ever seen," she said. "It's very hands-on."
While WAIT focuses on abstinence, it doesn't prevent other topics from being covered in school. In anatomy and physiology, when birth control is discussed, students broach topics on their own.
"The (students) get it all," Beaupre said. "They get everything. They usually bring up (their own questions) if we don't talk about it."
-- Contact reporter Maggie O'Neill at moneill@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1219.
Look ahead
Virginia City Middle School eighth-graders shared some of their goals last week:
• In their 20s: Be the first woman in the world to win Monsterbike. Go to college or already graduate. Get a doctorate in marine biology. Play guitar better.
• In their 30s: Own a home and have a family. Have a huge house. Have a steady job.
• In their 40s: Travel around America in a motor home. Own a dance studio. Be financially successful and send the children to college. Travel the world with Dad.
• In their 50s: Go to Egypt. Retire. Buy a 1967 Mustang. Live in a house on the beach. Be rich. Still be alive.