Matt Hamilton | The Daily CitizenNurses Christie Brewer, left, and Hannah Jones, right, help Aleigha Lopez, left, and Elia Martinez, both 15, as they strap on 40-pound bags of sand to simulate pregnancy as part of the Teen Maze program.

VALDOSTA, Ga. — There is an invisible line when it comes to the topic of preventing teen pregnancy.

Percy Chastang is the program coordinator for the office of adolescent health for the Georgia Department of Public Health. He teaches abstinence-based courses to schools in Lowndes, Brooks and Echols counties. The courses involve opening a dialogue about sex with students that isn’t vulgar or immature, he said.

“Of course, we get kids laughing and making comments, but we try to talk to them about sex in an intelligent way,” Chastang said. “We call it Abstinence Plus, which stops at the line of contraceptives. We don’t openly discuss them or pass them out.”

Chastang called speaking about contraceptives and safe sex the invisible line. He has been the     adolescent coordinator for 17 years and said schools are afraid to teach students about contraceptives such as condoms and birth control because of the expected backlash from parents.

He said South Georgia is mostly conservative and deeply religious, which makes talking about sex before marriage difficult. In North Georgia, there are models the South could follow that would make a bigger difference, but Chastang said South Georgia has been slowly moving in a more progressive direction.

“Seven years ago, I could barely get into the schools,” Chastang said. “It was hard enough for me to teach classes without being monitored by counselors. We’re definitely making progress.”

Schools in South Georgia and North Florida focus primarily on teaching abstinence and telling students about the consequences of having sex at a young age.

After a student becomes pregnant, there are the many and various school programs helping pregnant teens by providing them with vouchers to buy healthy food, extra time to finish classes and special courses that teach them how to be a responsible parent.

Between the abstinence and parenting classes, something is missing. It is something all the schools inside the SunLight coverage area – Valdosta, Dalton, Thomasville, Milledgeville, Tifton and Moultrie, Ga., and Live Oak, Jasper and Mayo, Fla., along with the surrounding counties — struggle to talk about.

What’s missing is teaching teens how to have safe sex, safe either from STDs or from prematurely bringing a new life into the world, Chastang suggested.

Despite the invisible line, there has been progress on lowering teen pregnancy across the state and nation.

Teen pregnancy in the SunLight coverage area is mostly on the decline. In 1994, there were about 260 pregnancies from people between the ages of 10 and 19 in Lowndes County, according to the Georgia Department of Health. Last year, there were about 130, a decrease of more than 50 percent.

The trend follows for all other South Georgia counties in the coverage area. Whitfield County went from 174 teen pregnancies in 2012 to 137 in 2016; Colquitt County saw a 50 percent drop from 142 pregnancies in 2006 to 71 in 2016; Tift County went from 167 in 1994 to 59 in 2016; Baldwin County had 164 teen pregnancies in 1994 and 41 in 2016, and Thomas County went from 170 in 1994 to 46 in 2016.

North Florida is the exception.

According to Suwannee and Lafayette County Health Department Administrator Kerry Waldron, the number of teen pregnancies is on the increase.

“We are seeing children get pregnant as young as 12 years old,” Waldron said. “Kids are having kids, and they are mentally not ready.”

According to Florida Health Charts, Suwannee County did not have any teen pregnancies for the age group of 12-14 in 2016 but did have a rate of 2.5 in 2015. The rate is determined by the range of total births divided by total populations per 1,000 people.

Lafayette County had a rate of 5.8 in 2016. The Florida rate is 0.3 for that age group.

Suwannee County’s rate for pregnancies for the age group 15-17 for 2014-16 was 19.5 and Lafayette County’s rate was 22.1.

Florida’s rate was 8.9.

“Nationwide and statewide, the rate has dropped,” said Deanna Mericle, advanced registered nurse practitioner.

Mericle said she believes the drop is in large part due to the use of long-acting birth control methods.

“Our counties are not in sync with the rest of the country,” Mericle said.

Unfortunately, she said, the first time most teenagers step into the health department, they are already pregnant. The health department offers multiple types of contraceptives including condoms, birth control pills, IUDs and implants.

Mericle said, in Florida, minors do not have to have parental consent to get birth control. People seeking condoms do not have to have an appointment. They can ask a receptionist for a bag.

Waldron said the health department has given out 15,000 free condoms in the past year.

“We encourage folks to come see us because if you are having promiscuous sex, which a lot of the teens are having sex without acknowledgement of the parents, that also increases our sexually transmitted infection rate, which is on the increase,” Waldron said.

He said if the county does not change the way it educates teenagers, the county could see an increase in sexually transmitted infections, HIV and AIDs.

Waldron emphasized the need to change the way teenagers are taught about sexual activities.

“Abstinence is being taught, but in reality that is not happening,” Waldron said. “If we continue to use the same methods, we will continue to get the same results.”

He said a community mind shift and an education mind shift need to happen.

“We don’t want kids out there having sex, but kids are going to have sex, so how can we best equip them to protect themselves,” Waldron said.

Although Georgia is fairing better than North Florida, when it comes to teen pregnancy, preventive programs at schools mostly focus on abstinence and warning teens about the dangers of sex.

“First and foremost, we preach abstinence until marriage,” said Tammy Shealey, counselor for ninth- and tenth-grade students at Thomas County Central High School.

All TCCHS ninth-graders take a health class, where students learn about abstinence, sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy-preventive measures.

“Abstinence is our definite common thread throughout all of our programs,” Shealey said.

Teen pregnancy numbers at TCCHS have dropped in recent years. Shealey said she considers the school’s efforts a contributing factor. Numbers throughout the state of Georgia have also seen a decrease.

The Thomasville City Schools district offers a teen pregnancy-prevention program to middle-schoolers and high school students.

The middle school program, “Making a Difference,” and the high school program, “Be Proud, Be Responsible,” are funded through a grant, said LaToya Williams, who supervises the programs. She is the MacIntyre Park Middle School’s parent-involvement coordinator.

The middle school curriculum is abstinence-focused, while the high school curriculum focuses on teaching personal responsibility for one’s actions and health, Williams said.

Currently, a total of 100 students, for both the middle and high school curriculums, are enrolled in the programs. Students must get parental permission to participate in the program, Williams said.

The middle school program runs six days and the high school program lasts 10 days.

The 2015-16 school year was the planning year for the program and was implemented the following school year. The 2017-18 school year, Williams said, could be the last year because of a cut in funding.

“We are looking to continue,” Williams said.

In Whitfield and Murray counties, sophomores from many high schools are required to go through a program called Teen Maze.

Organized by Family Connection, Teen Maze presents students with scenarios that aim to teach them how their decisions can affect them and others.

Some of the scenarios deal with teen pregnancy.

“One of them they call the ‘baby belly section,’” said Tracie Hogan, Whitfield County Schools lead counselor. “The students, male and female, put on this apron, that simulates the size and weight gain during pregnancy. They have different ones, so you go through the first trimester, the second trimester, the third trimester. The students get a feel for what it is like to walk around (carrying) all that weight. They learn just what a challenge things (as simple as) tying your shoelaces can be.”

Students learn babies born to teen mothers are more likely to be born prematurely or to have a low birth weight.

“One of the scenarios is that the baby is born prematurely,” Hogan said. “Neonatal nurses from Hamilton are there. They have models to show them how small premature babies are. They talk about the health risks premature babies face, not just as infants but later in life.”

Some of the students try their hands at changing diapers. Others will sit down with financial planners and talk about how much it costs to raise a child.

“It really is an eye-opener for them,” Hogan said.

Both Whitfield County Schools and Dalton Public Schools work with Family Frameworks, a local non-profit that aims to keep parents and children together, reduce divorce and build stronger families.

“They come in and do a seven-week course for our freshmen where they talk about healthy decision making in relationships,” said Ivelisse Peters, a social worker at Dalton High School. “That covers topics such as teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, but it’s much broader than that.”

Dalton city school sophomores also go through Teen Maze.

The Tift County School System also uses Teen Maze, along with other overall health courses. The school system addresses issues surrounding teen pregnancy several times throughout a student’s path in the school system.

According to Stacey Beckham, director of communications, fifth- and sixth-grade students take a biology and reproduction class with a nurse to learn about the basics of how their bodies work.

Once in high school, ninth and 10th graders are required to take a health class, where reproduction is addressed as one component of overall health.

Like Whitfield and Murray county schools, ninth graders in Tift County also participate in the Teen Maze.

The maze experience starts off with a group of students at a party. Then, depending on which slip of paper randomly drawn out of a bag, they go to different stations where they learn about what happens to them.

All of the choices are completely random, and while some students make it all the way to graduation with no problems, most of the students experience, for example, teen pregnancy, getting a sexually transmitted disease, dropping out of high school, going to jail or even dying.

According to Deanna W. Folsom, social services coordinator for Valdosta City Schools, the city uses a curriculum called REAL Essentials in its health classes at the high school. It focuses on prevention, and on healthy relationships and good choices. It promotes abstinence as the best choice, but has other positive lessons regarding healthy relationships and how to decrease the risk of engaging in unhealthy choices.

Sandra Wilcher, director of student support services for Lowndes County Schools, said county schools teach Choosing the Best Journey in their health and personal fitness classes, which all ninth graders are required to take. Choosing the Best Journey’s curriculum is consistent with Title V federal guidelines A-H for abstinence-centered, sexual risk avoidance education.

Highland Christian Academy in Valdosta does not have a sex education class but does offer health and anatomy classes.

“This is my first year at the school and introducing maybe some programs in that vein is something I’m researching,” said Cobie Tomlinson, HCA principal. “We want to do everything from a biblical perspective but also not be a school that creates a false bubble that the students live in that they’re not prepared to live in the, quote unquote, real world.”

Tomlinson said as far as he knows HCA has no pregnant student and therefore does not have a program established to assist pregnant teens.

For Valdosta and Lowndes schools, counselors seemed to handle discussions about sex with students on a personal basis. If teachers notice a problem with a particular student, they might bring the student to the attention of counselors who would open a dialogue with the student about options available for them. The counselors would then choose the best option moving forward.

Counselors find the personal approach works best for not only preventing teen pregnancy but also working with a teen who is already pregnant.

The SunLight Project team of journalists who contributed to this report includes Thomas Lynn, Alan Mauldin, Patti Dozier, Charles Oliver, Will Woolever, Jessie Box and Eve Guevara.