As we approach Inauguration Day, it’s tempting to ask how sex ed might be affected by the incoming administration. It’s also tough to call, as sexuality education wasn’t necessarily at the forefront this past campaign season. Still, Rewire has tried to answer that question, or at least to engage in some well-informed speculation. In her most recent post… Read more »
Here’s an extra large edition of Sex Ed in the news to carry you through to the new year… Queensland Government Makes Sex Ed Overhaul a Priority In Queensland, Australia, the State Government has launched a five-year plan in response to a survey showing that 84 percent of parents believe all state schools should be required to… Read more »
Recently, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) released their 2016 Sex Ed State Legislative Year-End Report. An annual publication, it contains information on sex ed legislation across the country, and provides analysis that allows readers to more fully understand the impact of these new laws, and how they either advance… Read more »
President of Planned Parenthood Voices Continued Commitment to Health Care for All In the wake of last week’s election, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards reaffirmed that Planned Parenthood “will never stop fighting to ensure that Planned Parenthood patients have access to the care they need, people who come from communities that need our continued support in… Read more »
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 »
Continuing our efforts to get you fired up for the forthcoming National Sex Ed Conference, here’s another post spotlighting one of our conference presenters (you can find our previous presenter spotlight here). Ryan Bronkema, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the University of West Georgia where he teaches Counselor Education and College Student Affairs. He’ll be… 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 »
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 »
Last week, the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC) reported on the Girls’ Power Initiative (GPI)—a youth development organization—and on how they were struggling to measure the impact of the comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) programs they were providing in Nigeria. Comfort Ikpeme, a coordinator for the GPI, wrote of how her organization has been using the Voice, Action, Comportment,… Read more »
