Haines School Board Approves Sex Ed Instructor, Materials The Haines School Board in Haines, Alaska, recently voted unanimously to approve both the high school sex education instructor and the textbook he would be using to teach the course. Their decisions were made under House Bill 156, a new law that gives parents more oversight. Some… Read more »
The Word ‘Sex’ Removed from Government Documents About Sex Ed In New Delhi, India, the government has requested that the word “sex” and its derivatives (such as “sexual health”) be removed from a policy document on sex education for teens so as to avoid offending people. Activists Sue Utah State Board of Education Over Sex… Read more »
New Sex Ed Textbooks Approved After Being Made Available for Public Display In California, Fairfield-Suisun School District trustees approved the use of the Positive Prevention Plus textbook starting in spring 2017, despite a letter from six women who expressed concern over content on sexual orientation. The new materials that have been approved for the coming semester,… Read more »
Middle School Sex Ed Curriculum in Washington State Under Review The Moses Lake School Board in Grant County, Washington, is about to review a new sex education curriculum for the district’s middle school students. The curriculum, titled “Draw The Line/Respect The Line,” is a three-year program that promotes abstinence and includes lesson plans on healthy relationships and… Read more »
In Juneau, Alaska, Schools Fall in Line with New Sex Ed Bill Earlier this month, Mother Jones magazine published a piece on how difficult it is to ensure compliance with the Healthy Youth Act in California. In other states, school districts are slowly falling in line with their own new laws. Among them, the Juneau, Alaska, school board… Read more »
Health Education Program for Teen Boys Being Tested in Malaysia A module on reproductive health education and the sexuality of teenage boys will be introduced next month in Malaysia, in schools in Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, and Sabah. This module was developed by the National Population and Family Development Board, and is intended to address “the… Read more »
Catholic School Doesn’t Allow Opt-Out Option for Sex Ed A private Catholic school in Nashville, Tennessee is refusing to allow parents to opt out of sending their children to sex ed. The Catholic Diocese of Nashville is supporting this stance despite an outcry from parents. State of California Faces Struggle in Ensuring Compliance with New… Read more »
States Rejecting Federal Funding in Favor of Abstinence-Only Sex Ed Less than 50 percent of the nation’s high schools meet the CDC’s standards for comprehensive sex education. And recently, more and more states are opting to reject federal funding in order to hang on to their abstinence-based sex ed curricula. In 2015, for example, Florida,… Read more »
Abstinence Education Is Undergoing a Rebranding The National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) has renamed itself Ascend, and is rebranding abstinence-only sex education as sexual risk avoidance (SRA). Valerie Huber, the president and CEO of Ascend, says that SRA is different from comprehensive sexual education in that “We don’t distribute or demonstrate [contraceptive methods]; we educate about it. You may… Read more »
Vatican Releases Controversial Sex Education Program The Vatican has released a sex education program—”The Meeting Point: Course of Affective Sexual Education for Young People”—that has many up in arms. Life Site, a news site that align itself with “traditional Judeo-Christian principles,” lays out what they see as its positive and negative attributes. Restrictive Alaska Bill… Read more »
Sex Ed Bill Causes Controversy in Massachusetts A group of Massachusetts legislators have introduced a bill that would set curricula for schools that offer sex ed. Lessons would be required to include “age-appropriate” information on healthy relationships, the benefits of abstinence, and the use of contraceptive methods to help prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. The bill was initially… Read more »
New Report Claims British Sex Ed Unfit for New Generation According to a new report, sex education in British schools is “unfit” for the “smartphone generation.” The report goes on to claim that 95 percent of pupils are not being taught about LGBT relationships, and one in seven pupils receives no sex ed classes at all. The… Read more »
Sex Ed Updates Come to Mount Pleasant School District For the first time since 2011, the Mt. Pleasant, Michigan sex education advisory board will be making changes to the district’s sex education curriculum. Most notably, sex education will now be offered as early as fourth grade. Kenyans Look for Ways to Bring Sex Ed to More… Read more »
Virginia High Schools Work on Injecting Consent into Sex Ed Curricula Last year, Fairfax County Public Schools updated its family life education curriculum to include lessons on sexual consent and assault. The changes are set to be implemented next school year. Among the updates being considered is the inclusion of a three-part video about sexual violence…. Read more »
Chair of Toronto Catholic District School Board Has a Change of Heart In the past, Angela Kennedy, chair of the Toronto Catholic District School Board, has fought the implementation of a more comprehensive sex ed curriculum because of her religious beliefs. But since learning of her son’s abuse as a child, she has had a change of… Read more »
An Ontario Principal is Pushing a Watered Down Version of New Sex Ed Curriculum A school principal in Ontario, Canada is pushing a watered down version of the new sex ed curriculum as a means of combating plummeting enrollment rates. Among the changes made, students will be taught the phrase “private parts,” versus the anatomically… Read more »
Outrage in Dearborn, MI Over ‘Explicit’ Sex Ed Curriculum Several students at Fordson High School in Dearborn, MI walked out of their health class recently after being quizzed on their knowledge of safe sex habits. Since then, parents have expressed outrage about the class, saying they didn’t even know about, and hadn’t been given the opportunity to… Read more »
San Francisco Schools Strengthen Their Already Robust Sex Ed Curricula The California Comprehensive Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Prevention Act went into effect at the beginning of 2016, but the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) has been providing education that meets its requirements for years. The SFUSD is now assisting other school districts, and is making their sex… Read more »
Toronto Public School Forced to Offer ‘Sanitized’ Version of Sex Ed Thorncliffe Park Public School in Toronto, Canada has begun offering a “sanitized” version of Ontario’s sex ed curriculum to first graders, as a way to stop parents from pulling their children out of class. This move comes into response to controversy over the existing curriculum, over which hundreds… Read more »
East Lansing School Board Votes to Allow Guest Speakers from Local Health Centers Board members of the East Lansing, MI school board voted 7-0 to allow guest speakers from Willow Adolescent Health Center Outreach Educational Program and End Violent Encounters to speak at East Lansing High School. Outside speakers for sex education were pulled from the district… Read more »
