LAUSD To Take On Sexting with students

LOS ANGELES, CA (FOX 11) - Will waging an anti-sexting campaign help middle and high schoolers curb their appetite for sexting? The LAUSD's Holly Priebe-Diaz hopes so. She's the district's intervention coordinator. The district has waged anti-bullying campaigns so, it's no stranger to this type of education. Programming aimed at teaching students about the dangers of sexting.

This is a program that will be introduced in the next couple of weeks will involve a video about 10 minutes long and educational material aimed at warning students to be SMART... when using their SMART phones. Specifically, about texting, posting or sending inappropriate sexualized messages to other people.

Priebe-Diaz says that national statistics show that 4% of students questioned admitted to sexting. Another 15% said they had received sexually inappropriate messages.

The new LAUSD educational effort is called NOW MATTERS LATER because what you do NOW may MATTER LATER! For one thing, the district says, future potential employees may find a sexualized text, or sext, online that could keep a student now from getting a job in the future. And, Priebe-Diaz says you may think pictures you take now will not be around to harm you later in life. But say someone whose 16 takes a naked picture or video, and ten years down the road when their 26, that picture is still of a 16-year-old and could get the person with the picture in a lot of trouble.")

"It is child pornography," says Priebe-Diaz, and people who are in possession of it are in possession of child pornography. And, if they're forwarding it then that's distribution of child pornography."

16-year-old Astrid Ruby is looking forward to her junior year in high school. When it comes to sexting she says, "I know many many kids that do this. She's not one of them. "It's not my cup of tea," she says. And, that's the kind of attitude.

Astrid Rubi, whose looking forward to her junior year in high school, says she doesn't sext - not her cup of tea - but she knows a lot of teenagers that do.

Holly Priebe-Diaz says the district's NOW MATTERS LATER campaign will aim at getting young people to understand that

"It's okay and have healthy relationships," but, sexting isn't healthy.

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