It’s back to the drawing board for Battle Ground Public Schools’ adoption of new sexual health curriculum, meaning high school students at the district are likely to start this coming school year using what district officials have described as an out-of-date and scientifically inaccurate textbook in their health class.
That’s because on Monday, the north Clark County district’s school board voted to table its discussion of FLASH, or “Family Life and Sexual Health,” for high school students. The sexual health curriculum, developed by Public Health — Seattle and King County, is approved by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction as being scientifically and medically accurate, and compliant with state law.
The board folded under pressure from conservative protesters who claimed the curriculum promotes an “LGBTQ agenda,” and accused the board of failing to be transparent in its consideration of FLASH.
Board president Ken Root told the crowd “nothing bugs us as a board more” than being accused of a lack of transparency.
“We understand. We’re going to re-look at this and we’re going to come together,” Root said.
But Battle Ground Public Schools was never planning to offer the lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in the first place. District spokeswoman Rita Sanders said the district’s curriculum committee was only considering some of the curriculum’s lessons, including units on the reproductive system, pregnancy, consent, birth control methods, and preventing and testing for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
Still, Kenny Smith, the former chair of the Clark County Republican Party who rallied many of Monday’s protesters, told The Columbian at that meeting he worried about the potential for the curriculum to expand in scope and extend into other grades.
“I’m worried this is going to be opening the door,” Smith said.
Keith Seinfeld, a spokesman for Public Health — Seattle and King County, disagreed with the characterization that the FLASH curriculum is trying to push any sort of agenda.
“Hopefully, if the community can get past some of the misinformation, I think the goals are shared goals,” Seinfeld said. “We want to prevent teen pregnancy. We want to prevent STDs. We want to prevent sexual violence. I think everyone can support that.”
Long-standing curriculum
FLASH is a long-standing curriculum in Washington state and around the country, with every district in King County, schools in 40 states and a number of schools abroad using the program, Seinfeld said. It’s also one of six curricula for high school students vetted by the state and deemed to be compliant with scientific and legal standards.
Washington’s requirements for sexual health education are narrow. Under the AIDS Omnibus Act, schools need only teach students scientifically accurate information about HIV and AIDS prevention. Sexual health education is not required at all under state law. But, if offered, the state’s Healthy Youth Act requires sexual health education include information about abstinence as well as other forms of FDA-approved birth control.
“In other words, the instruction must be comprehensive,” OSPI’s website reads.
Information must also be accurate, age-appropriate and appropriate for students regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation and disability status. There are state education standards on puberty, gender identity and sexual orientation beginning in kindergarten, but schools are not required to adopt curriculum with lessons on those subjects.
Most sexual health curricula do include lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation, however. Here is a brief description of the programs available for high schools:
• “Rights, Respect, Responsibility,” which includes lessons on healthy relationships and sexual abuse, sexual orientation and gender identity, and various forms of birth control and STD protection.
• “Teen Talk” for high school juniors and seniors, which includes lessons on sexually transmitted diseases, gender identity and sexual orientation and sexual violence prevention.
• “Get Real,” which includes lessons on healthy relationships, sexual orientation and gender identity, and various forms of birth control and STD protection.
• “Positive Prevention PLUS,” which includes lessons on healthy relationships and abuse, human trafficking, birth control and STD protection and gender and sexual orientation.
• “All4You2!”, a textbook developed for alternative education settings, which focuses on HIV and STDs, healthy relationships, and various forms of birth control and STD protection. There are no lessons about gender identity and sexual orientation.
Districts can adopt other forms of sexual health education apart from those already reviewed by OSPI, so long as they comply with state law. OSPI reviews sexual health education programs every two years to determine compliance.
Seinfeld with Public Health — Seattle and King County touted FLASH, one of the highest rated by OSPI, as a flexible curriculum that can be tweaked to suit the community. FLASH is made up of 15 lessons, and districts can pick and choose which lessons they’d like to pursue. Students are also required to go home and discuss the day’s lessons with their families, which Seinfeld said encourages families to consider and discuss their own values.
“That’s one of the reasons why it’s not fair to say that it’s undermining any sort of family values,” Seinfeld said. “Very few things in school are actually promoting that kind of dialogue.”
Neighboring school district Evergreen Public Schools implemented the FLASH curriculum for fourth through eighth graders last year, replacing scientifically inaccurate video tapes from the 1980s.
“Our goal was really to bring medically informed health curriculum to our students that was accurate,” said Becky Kadrmas, director of curriculum and instruction for the district.
There are no lessons in Evergreen’s curriculum, however, about sexual orientation or gender identity, Kadrmas said.
“We are not integrating all the curriculum. It’s kind of an overwhelming program if you do that,” Kadrmas said.
District spokeswoman Gail Spolar noted that “none to few” parents end up opting their children out of sexual health education, which they can do under state law.
