Md. 'Gum Game' Used for 9 Years

Faith-based organizations aren't automatically barred from public schools, Edwards said. The decision hinges on the content of the lessons.

"There was no indication to us that [this] group's religious views entered into what they were teaching," Edwards said. "The issue here is what was being instructed. Not who."

Seh-Hee Koh, director of Worth the Wait, broke down in tears yesterday as she related her passion for teaching teens about abstinence. Her message, Koh said, was to help students feel "empowered to make the choices in their lives. Not their boyfriends; not their girlfriends."

Koh assumed the job last year and had visited only 11 Montgomery schools when her agency's invitation was revoked. Koh said she has continued to visit private after-school programs in the Washington region. Tierney said the lessons no longer include the gum game.

Koh said she did not know about the gum exercise when she inherited the lessons and did not use it in the first several schools she visited. She said a health teacher told her that her predecessor had played the gum game and that students had seemed to like it.

Koh said her first reaction was, "Ew, that's gross." But she tried it at Damascus High School in early December, and students liked it. So she tried it again at Churchill, Einstein and Poolesville high schools in a series of visits through Jan. 9.

"I'd just stand back," Koh said, describing the game. "I'd say: 'It's all volunteer. Nobody has to be doing this.' My intention would be that nobody does this."

The game occupied a few minutes in the lesson on the consequences of premarital sex and exposure to STDs. Koh shared a stack of positive reviews written by teachers and students.

Edwards disputed her account and said he'd heard no reports of teachers encouraging Koh to play the gum game. He confirmed, however, that teachers were present during all of the lessons.

School board member Patricia O'Neill said she believes the faith-based group "had no business" in the county schools.

But O'Neill said her daughter and nephew, both high school students, had a different opinion. "Their reaction was some of the best parts of the health class are the outside speakers, because the curriculum is so boring," she said.