It's a relatively simple, three-letter word, yet it looms over the heads of teenagers like a fuse itching for a spark: Sex.

But not for Erika Harder, who could have been an expert on the issue by the time she hit high school. Instead, Harder, now 20, chose abstinence.

She didn't come to her decision because of her abstinence-based health classes at Highlands Middle School in Kennewick. She attributes most of her acumen to the comprehensive sex-education courses taught at her church.

Like many of us, Harder -- now a French major at Central Washington University in Ellensburg -- remembers her middle school sex-education curriculum as rudimentary and disappointing.

"We just watched a movie on HIV/AIDS, and that was it," she says. "There was no discussion or anything. We were basically told sex was just bad."

Harder, then 12, attended the Our Whole Lives program at the Community Unitarian Universalist Church in the Tri-Cities. She describes it as "pretty liberal."

Better known as OWL, the program offers a series of comprehensive sex-education seminars adapted to four age groups, ranging from kindergarten through high school. The program aims to equip kids with everything they should, or might want, to know about issues concerning sex and their developing bodies.

In a group setting, students are exposed to a variety of perspectives -- with presentations from Planned Parenthood as well as abstinence-only organizations -- to learn about protection options and where to go for resources.

Harder says she appreciated this "holistic approach" because it made her feel empowered.

"The confidence you got from making decisions for yourself could be applied to so many other aspects of your life. They weren't judgmental. They weren't just scaring you with sex. They really told you how to protect yourself."

In a perfect world, Harder says, every sex-ed class would adopt this in-depth, comprehensive curriculum.

Last year, the Washington state Legislature agreed.

Since 2001, the federal government has awarded our state roughly $700,000 a year to teach abstinence-only curricula in public schools. Some schools tapped into their own pockets to provide more comprehensive courses. But many public schools, especially smaller ones that depended heavily on the federal grant money, stuck with abstinence-only teachings.

Last year, the Legislature took a critical look at this system, evaluating what was working and what wasn't. Studies unveiled a growing rate of sexually transmitted diseases among Washington teens, especially chlamydia and gonorrhea. And while teen pregnancy rates were down, a closer examination found pregnancy-related drop-out rates in high school were on the rise.

These daunting statistics foreshadowed a national trend. In March, a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found one in every four teenage girls has at least one STD. And roughly 40 percent of the girls sampled admitted to having sex.

So the Legislature passed the Healthy Youth Act, a set of guidelines that public schools that decide to teach sexual education must follow. Under the act, schools must provide curricula that is medically accurate, age-appropriate, and focused on both abstinence and contraception.

For some concerned community members, the rubrics are a long-awaited welcome.

"We have always said we can do better. It was a discredit to the community not to ensure comprehensive sex education," says 36-year-old Amy Claussen, director of education and training at Planned Parenthood of Central Washington and a former Spanish teacher at Yakima's Lewis and Clark Middle School.

Claussen has reason to want change.

"I see it all the time," she says. "I talk with girls who are already pregnant and they tell me, 'I wish I had this information before.' No one sits them down to talk with them about these things. We've seen all the myths. I've even had young girls come to me thinking they were dying because they started their period and no one told them about it."

Claussen says she's concerned that such misinformed teens are still sexually active. She fears abstinence-only curricula paint sex as a black-and-white issue, leaving teens caught in a gray confusion. And she says she feels that not educating teens on all the options available to them only undermines their responsibility to make choices.

"If we want high-level critical thinkers in the community," she says, "teens need to learn to build decision-making skills."

Not everyone is so enthusiastic about the new law. Some parents and abstinence-based groups have already expressed concern over the changes. Kathy Iwami, a 50-year-old coordinator at Grandview's evangelical, pro-abstinence organization Life Options, is one of these people. She gives presentations to schools throughout the Yakima Valley.

While she doesn't think her AWARE program -- Abstaining, Waiting and Respecting Each other -- will be refuted, Iwami is apprehensive. She says she's afraid students might misinterpret the juxtaposing information.

"I value a program that is abstinence-only," Iwami says. "Otherwise, I think we give kids mixed messages with unhealthy and risky results. I think comprehensive is the scary word here. Unfortunately, this can mean a lot of different things to different people."

The Healthy Youth Act will give schools requirements, but it leaves the fine-tuning to the discretion of the school district.

"It's meant to be a framework," says Claussen, adding she would like to see all schools "adopt a homemade curriculum" that syncs with its individual community.

"It's not code for let's-talk-about-contraception," she says. "It's going to focus on healthy relationships, prevention and personal choices. I like it to call it front-loading."

The Healthy Youth Act was modeled after the research of Douglas Kirby, an American research scientist who studied and evaluated sex-education curricula from around the world. Kirby's research was sponsored by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy in an effort to address alarming teen-sex statistics.

Based on more than 115 program evaluations from around the world, Kirby's research found that curricula focusing on both abstinence and contraception showed the most positive correlations in young adults. Two-thirds of the time, teens exposed to this comprehensive approach showed more willingness to delay sex and use contraception when they were sexually active.

Abstinence-only programs showed no improvements. Neither the frequency of sex nor the number of partners went down. And those who were already sexually active showed no strong evidence of returning to abstinence.

Iwami, who says she believes schools should only teach abstinence and relationship development, doesn't think abstinence programs are to blame: "The majority of kids want to be abstinent. Where is the falling off? That is what education has to ask."

Iwami also says she thinks the legislation was largely persuaded by liberal politics: "The political arena is not for abstinence," she says. "Who is to say what is medically accurate? Statistics favoring abstinence are more often declined. ... It comes down to money and where that money is going."

But the federal government's annual grant for abstinence-only courses in Washington schools -- expected to be about $200,000 this year -- is in jeopardy because of the Healthy Youth legislation. Though the Washington Health Department applied for the grant, the new requisite that the money will be used for comprehensive education rules it out for the abstinence-only money.

This means schools previously dependent on these funds would have to either pull sources from other grants and budgets, or solely rely on on-hand teachers and materials.

Allison Holmes, a 31-year-old mother of three girls in the Yakima Valley, is also concerned with sex-education policies. But Holmes is worried that her girls -- the oldest of whom is in fifth grade -- won't get enough information. She believes a comprehensive approach, similar to the OWL program, is the best preventive measure. Knowledge, she says, can be the "armor" youth can use to protect themselves.

"I want my girls well-equipped for the real world," she says. "They are going to make decisions for themselves, and I want them to know as much as they can."

Recently, Holmes attended a sex-education meeting for parents at her daughter's school. She says she was surprised that only about a half-dozen parents showed up. But she found the level of information covered was even more disappointing than the low attendance.

"They don't really talk about anything," she says. "They show a movie where a baby is born, but they don't tell the kids how (the woman) got pregnant. I think it's kind of a disservice."

Holmes says her own sex-education classes were similar: uncomfortable and rudimentary. She even questions whether the movie she saw as a kid was the same one her daughters would now watch.

Like many parents, she acknowledges, "Things are changing so fast. Kids have access to a lot more information today. They are developing sooner. So if this is all they're getting in school, it's probably not enough."

Holmes agrees with Iwami on the point that "values are taught at home." But she is anxious for an update in sex education because she says she feels abstinence-only education can be a "slippery slope" that disregards a larger population of confused teenagers.

"It's uncomfortable to talk about but it needs to be done," she says. "We need to dispel the mystery. It can't be hush-hush."

The Healthy Youth Act will take effect in the fall, just in time for the start of the next school year. Some, like Holmes, are already looking forward to the long-awaited revisions in sex-education policies. Others are more apprehensive of the possible implications and will push for an appeal.

Either way, the Healthy Youth Act is now bringing the issue of teen sex, that simple yet ominous hush-hush word of school hallways, to the forefront of public discussion -- where it belongs.

* Jordie Ricigliano attends Zillah High School.