raw needed on select tag options? Rails3/Ruby1.9.2

When passing a string of options to select tag it appears it you need to use raw.

This does not work <%= select_tag "people", "<option>David</option>" %>

This does <%= select_tag "people", raw("<option>David</option>") %>

Is this WAD? (Working As Designed).

example usage taken from

Creating options from options_for_select works fine but I have cases where I usually add 1 option

options = '<option value="">Select Duration (in months)</option>' + options_for_select((min_contract_length..max_months).to_a, item.months)

When I do this I need to do use raw.

<%= select_tag "months", raw(options) %>

Assuming this is WAD the documentation should probably be updated.

Is there a better way to do what I am doing above (adding an option to the options_for_select output)?

Thanks Tony Primerano