Schools in India Will Incorporate Transgender Issues into Sex Ed In New Delhi, the Department of Education has announced that it will incorporate transgender issues into mandatory sex and relationship education classes. These changes will go into effect for all primary and secondary schools beginning in September 2019. Schools in St. Louis Officially Moving Past… Read more »
Wisconsin School District Looks To Update Curriculum, Receives Push-Back In Wisconsin, the Neenah Joint School District was considering changes to a sex ed curriculum that hasn’t been updated in over a decade. The curriculum as it stood was abstinence-based. The school board has since voted to approve changes that include proper condom use and gender… Read more »
Thrive St. Louis Program Continues Draw Fire from Locals Throughout the past year, we’ve shared stories out of St. Louis about push-back against the abstinence-focused Thrive program. The controversy continues with the circulation of a petition asking Lindbergh Schools’ Board of Education to remove the program from the district and replace it with a more comprehensive… Read more »
Parents in Victoria, Australia Shocked Over High School’s Push of Abstinence-Focused Sex Ed Parents of students at Officer Secondary College were displeased upon receiving an email promoting abstinence as part of the school’s Respectful Relationships curriculum, a state government initiative aimed at stamping out domestic violence, and which is also designed to challenge gender stereotypes… Read more »
Public Schools in Millard, Nebraska Stick to Pro-Abstinence Education After topics such as gender identity were added to Omaha Public Schools’ new curriculum, leading to heated debate, Millard Public Schools has reaffirmed its commitment to teaching a pro-abstinence curriculum, a policy that has been in place since 1992. Future curriculum updates will only be approved… 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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
