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The Norfolk School Board is set to vote today on a new sex-education curriculum that would expand its instruction to cover topics such as gender identity and sexuality.
The program, called Get Real: Comprehensive Sex Education That Works, is intended for grades six through 10. Lessons would be expanded to include terminology such as “homosexuality,” lesbianism,” “abortion” and “masturbation. Additionally, concepts such as gender and sexual identity, sexual risks and low-risk intimacy and more would be included depending on grade level, according to presentations to the School Board on April 5 and May 3.
Topics already taught in Norfolk under its current curriculum include abstinence, puberty, anatomy and reproduction, sexually transmitted infections, healthy and unhealthy relationships, and more. There would also be a demonstration on proper condom use, Chief Academic Officer James Pohl told the board.
Some board members said they appreciated how comprehensive the curriculum would be.
“By being comprehensive, we have the (Standards of Learning) but then we are including additional information and depth to the topic and concepts,” board member Tanya Bhasin said during the last board meeting.
The division gained access to the curriculum though a partnership with Eastern Virginia Medical School Teen Health 360 Program, which adopted the Get Real curriculum. During remote learning during the pandemic, the Virginia Department of Education advised school divisions to not teach family life education. However, Teen Health 360 piloted the new curriculum at that time and middle and high school students were offered the optional course.
Get Real received largely positive responses from the School Board and the survey respondents, though some expressed concerns.
Pohl presented survey results during the April meeting with nearly 100 respondents reported. However, this survey period was extended, and by the end of the month, the number of respondents increased to more than 200. These included parents of Norfolk Public School students, employees, community members and students. The curriculum was available for review online and at various Norfolk libraries.
According to the survey results presented in the May 3 meeting, the majority of respondents found the Get Real content to be “excellent” when considering the age appropriateness of the topics and its ability to address both physical and social and emotion needs.
Approximately 120 of the respondents reportedly supported teaching all of the topics included on the survey, such as human sexuality, media literacy and sexuality, anatomy and reproduction, relationships and boundaries, gender identity, abstinence, and more.
However, the curriculum was also criticized by several respondents for including topics they considered not age-appropriate, and some opposed teaching gender identity, a new topic for the division’s family life education curriculum.
One respondent identified as a parent of a high school student wrote, “I don’t want or need my child being taught about gender or LGBTQ or any other political agenda.”
The upcoming vote has gotten national attention. Fox News initially reported on this matter May 1, before the latest presentation, characterizing the curriculum as “explicit.”
The article quotes Erika Sanzi, director of the parental rights group Outreach for Parents Defending Education, describing the middle school curriculum as “steeped in critical gender theory.”
Community input forums were also hosted earlier in the spring. Some of the concerns reported from those meetings included the condom demonstration, teaching about gender identity and the connection to Planned Parenthood.
The curriculum was published by Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts in collaboration with the Educational Development Center and the nonprofit ETR (Education, Training and Research), according to the Get Real website.
Pohl reported that more than 400 students participated in the voluntary course over the two academic years school divisions were not required to teach family life education. The majority of students and families who participated also had positive responses to the curriculum and recommended it for other families.
Pohl also said EVMS reported that data collected during the voluntary sessions indicated students showed “significant increases in knowledge from pre-assessment to post-assessment.”
Board member Rodney Jordan said he was “squeamish” about the opt-out process. As a parent who had opted his children out of family life education in school, he said, he wanted to ensure other families had the same opportunity.
“More than just talking about sex, it was talking about what our family morals may have been, what our religious beliefs were,” Jordan said.
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Currently, the process is an opt-out, though Pohl said the division had plans to ensure proper communication with parents.
Pohl told the board during the May meeting that the division would have letters “sent home each day, for each lesson” to allow parents to opt their children out of either specific lessons or all of the lessons entirely.
“You can’t choose for other people’s children, but you can choose for your child because we respect the fact that you are the parent,” board member Lauren Campsen said.
Kelsey Kendall, kelsey.kendall@virginiamedia.com