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WOOD RIVER — Two teenagers returned to school Wednesday after being suspended for wearing shirts promoting “safe sex” and refusing to change them.

School leaders at Lewis and Clark Junior High School in Wood River say the girls refused to take off the homemade shirts, which were tank tops worn over their regular shirts.

The phrase “safe sex or no sex” was written in permanent marker on the shirts when the girls showed up at school Monday morning. The shirts also had condoms fastened to the shirts, which also were sprinkled with glitter.

School administrators suspended them for Monday and Tuesday.

Tori Shoemaker, 15, one of the suspended eighth-graders at Lewis and Clark Junior High, said she and another student were suspended for “disrupting the education process.”

The other suspended student was Cheyenne Byrd, 14. Both said they oppose the school’s abstinence-only sex education curriculum.

“I think if we were taught more thoroughly about safer sex, people would use protection,” Shoemaker said.

The two students contacted The Telegraph about what they view as an injustice, but the principal said there were more appropriate ways for the girls to voice their opinions.

“Through our character education program, we have instituted class meetings this year, and they could have brought this topic up, or talked with their health teacher to see if this could be brought to them through a class, if the parents would allow it,” Principal Sue Rives said.

Rives added: “There was another way to go about what they wanted.”

The parents of the girls said they support their daughters.

“Teenagers today are getting pregnant something fierce,” said Vic Shoemaker, father of Tori Shoemaker. “(Classes) need to show up and let these kids know more. Either don’t have sex at all or be safe about it; that’s pretty to the point.”

“I think it’s a good idea, but I don’t know that I’m actually proud of her,” said Cari Morrill, mother of Cheyenne Byrd. “I’m proud of her for standing up for what she thinks.”

Superintendent Mark Cappel said the girls were given the choice to change out of the homemade shirts.

“What was fastened on (the shirts) would have caused a disruption, so we gave them the option to take the shirts off,” Cappell said. “It would have been very easy to do. They refused, so they were suspended.”

The girls said they also wore their shirts to support a female friend who was suspended last week for allegedly bringing a condom to the school cafeteria and putting it on her arm. Rives said that act was done in front of sixth-graders, who were also in the cafeteria at the time.


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