Board rejects new sex ed program for grades 4-6
The decision came at the end of a roughly 10-hour meeting
Following a hearing that lasted about 10 hours, the Fremont school board early Thursday morning scrapped the district’s plan to teach a controversial sexual education course to students in grades 4 through 6.
The 3-2 vote came after weeks of heated debate among parents and curriculum advocates about whether the material is appropriate for elementary school students.
Board president Yang Shao and trustees Desrie Campbell and Larry Sweeney voted against proceeding with the course; board vice president Michele Berke and Ann Crosbie voted in favor.
The board also voted 3-2 to offer the course to grades 7 through 9. Students in those grades historically have taken a less-advanced version of sexual education. Berke and Shao dissented.
More than 200 people showed up Wednesday to speak about the curriculum. Many said some of the material is too graphic and specific for young minds, while supporters said its focus on inclusion of different genders and sexual orientations should help kids grow up better-informed.
Officials said the material — based on the Rights, Respect and Responsibility curriculum developed by Advocates for Youth, referred to as the “3 Rs” — allows the district to comply with the state’s Healthy Youth Act, which passed in 2016. The law mandates that sexual education lessons “affirmatively recognize that people have different sexual orientations” and “explore the harm of negative gender stereotypes.”
Because the curriculum previously taught in elementary grades doesn’t meet that criteria, the board’s decision essentially halts all sexual education for fourth-, fifth- and sixthgraders, at least for now.
Fremont schools had taught sexual education to fourth- graders since 2011, and to fifth- and sixthgraders for years before then, according to staff reports.
State law only requires sex ed to be taught once in middle school and once in high school. But if districts choose to offer the course in lower grades, they must follow the law’s guidelines.
Many of the speakers said while they are not against “age appropriate” sexual education, they believe the “3Rs” is just too graphic for young kids to handle.
“There’s a difference between educational and explicit. The way this is written, it is explicit,” said Vijay Ghanta, a parent of a second- grader. “It makes it seem like having a sexual relationship at that age is OK. It is not ... You make it look like it is very normal. It is not normal at that age.”
“There’s been a misconcept ion f rom the ver y beginning that this group is really just a bunch of prudes, and we’re against sex education in total. That’s not true,” said Chris Drake, a parent who opposes the new material. “What we’re really saying is that we don’t like the 3Rs curriculum” because it’s too explicit.
Drake said the school district should have done a better job of gathering input from a broad coalition of parents about how sex education should be taught in Fremont.
Supporters of the curriculum said teaching kids early about puberty, consent and different gender identities and sexual orientations should make them more knowledgeable and respectful.
LeoMacPherson, a graduate of Fremont schools, was one of several current and former students who advocated for the new curriculum, saying it’s something he wishes they had been offered.
“That’s why this curriculum is so important to me. It gives every student in this district an equal chance to know these core lessons, when they need to know them, before puberty starts,” MacPherson said. “This curriculum isn’t about giving our children toomuch too soon, it’s about preventing too little too late.”
Supporters also suggested that dropping the curriculum is an overreaction because parents can opt their children out of taking it through a simple email or written note to the school.
The debate has been intensifying since early March, with people packing several board meetings and groups formed for and against the curriculum creating their own websites and online petitions.
Berke pointed out in her comments that the discussion has not always been civil, as some people have gone so far as to compare the school district to Nazi Germany.
Some comments have been “stereotypical at the least, and racist at the worst,” she said.
Berke and Crosbie voted to provide the course, saying it would arm students with more information and help prevent sexual assaults; they also cited the opt- out provision.
Sweeney voted to drop it because parents weren’t initially engaged and Shao and Campbell voted against it because it isn’t appropriate.
The board voted to form a task force of parents, medical experts and district officials in early July to come up with recommendations next year for a broadly acceptable sexual education curriculum that also complies with state law.