LUSD picks sexual education curriculum
LODI — After months of debate, research and community outreach, the Lodi Unified School District has decided on a sexual education curriculum that should both meet state standards and appease parents.
The Lodi Unified School District Board of Education on Tuesday night approved the recommendation from district staff to adopt the Family Life and Sexual Health curriculum, to be taught to seventhgraders and high school health classes beginning next fall.
The curriculum will finally make the district compliant with the California Healthy Youth Act.
Lisa Kotowski, the district’s assistant superintendent of curriculum, said the FLASH program consists of 15 lessons to be taught over the course of three weeks in seventh-grade science class and ninthgrade health class.
She said the district may consider expanding FLASH instruction to an entire quarter, as well as making it a requirement for high school graduation.
“We have to make sure all our students get these lessons, and these 15 lessons are needed to make state requirements,” Kotowski said. “We can also offer this course in summer school, and at different times of the year for students who have a full schedule, or if it impacts their AP classes or if they have other required classes in a full ninthgrade schedule.”
The CHYA took effect on Jan. 1, 2016, and requires school districts to provide students with integrated, comprehensive, accurate and inclusive comprehensive sexual health education and HIV prevention education. The curriculum is required to be presented at least once in middle school and once in high school, according to the California Department of Education.
It must also be age-appropriate and medically accurate and objective, as well as appropriate for all district students.
In addition, the curriculum must affirmatively recognize different sexual orientations and be inclusive of same-sex relationships in discussions and examples and teach students about gender, gender expression, gender identity, and the harm of negative gender stereotypes, among other requirements.
Curriculum content must provide information about HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases and infections; treatment and ways to reduce instances; social views of HIV and AIDS; access to resources for sexual and reproductive health care; effectiveness of contraceptive methods; abstinence; pregnancy; and sexual harassment, sexual assault, adolescent relationship abuse, intimate partner violence, and human trafficking, according to the CDE.
For the last couple of years, the district has been using the Teen Talk program as its sexual education curriculum for middle and high school students, and is used by other school district in San Joaquin County.
Teen Talk is just one of five programs that meets CHYA requirements, staff has said, and approving it would have solved the district’s issue of being non-compliant with the law.
The district has not been compliant with the CHYA since 2016, according to staff.
However, the Teen Talk program was not completely 100% compliant with the CHYA, staff said, but had the most alignment with the law among the other programs reviewed.
Those other programs included Rights, Respect Responsibility; FLASH; Planned Parenthood Los Angeles Sexual Health Curriculum; and Positive Prevention Plus.
Speaking on behalf of curriculum committee member Jamie Howen, a resident who identified herself only as Nicole during the public comment portion of the agenda item said there were concerns about the FLASH program.
Those concerns included the lack of information about negative effects of chemical and surgical transgender transitioning, as well as the lack of information about sexually transmitted diseases other than HIV and AIDS, or photos of such diseases to prevent promiscuity.
She added the curriculum needs to provide more information about healthy relationships.
“The CHYA states it is important to promote the value of marriage or long-term relationships, and as a society, we see the value in this with the higher instances of drug use, gang membership, juvenile crime and youth who grow up in a one-parent home,” she said. “The curriculum does not go far enough in promoting healthy, long-term relationships, such as a marriage or two-parent home.”
Morada Middle School teacher Lisa Wilkins was part of the curriculum council, and said much of what Jamie Howen’s representative read Tuesday night was not true.
She said the curriculum does not describe the transgender transitioning process in detail, but merely identifies it as a lifestyle option.
Wilkins also said the curriculum does not provide graphic photos of STDs because research has shown that “scare facts” don’t prevent sexual activity or STDs.
“Just because a lesson says to do something, doesn’t mean as a teacher that we’re going to do that,” she said. “You need to trust us as teachers. We’re parents too. We don’t want to see our children traumatized by this. We want them to go out there and be informed.”
The board did not discuss Kotowski’s report Tuesday, but will be making a final vote on the curriculum at its April 7 meeting.