Dallas ISD sex ed curriculum gets it wrong

The Dallas ISD Board of Trustees adopted new curriculum for reproductive and sexual well being May 26. Their vote adopted the suggestions of the district’s School Health Advisory Council, which is legally tasked with reviewing curriculum and making certain “local community values” are mirrored. Unfortunately, considerations from dad and mom and group members with the advisory council course of, together with restricted dad or mum, group and trainer involvement, and clear moral considerations, fell on deaf ears. Well-substantiated considerations in regards to the content material within the new curriculum did as properly.

Debates over sex schooling are usually not distinctive to Dallas. They are at all times contentious. They are at all times advanced, complicated and controversial. Sadly, they’re usually based mostly extra on private emotions and collective opinion than on the well being details that greatest shield kids.

Here are a number of the details that have been misplaced in final month’s debate.

Texas’ teen being pregnant charges, delivery charges, abortion charges and sexual exercise charges have all fallen dramatically for 25 years. Those who rally for so-called complete sex schooling usually level to Dallas’ “astronomical” being pregnant charges. According to the Texas Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, the delivery fee for Dallas County in 1995 was 92.40 (per 1,000 teenage women). By 2020, that quantity had dropped to 26.33. Of these, 69% have been older teenagers aged 18-19. The Centers for Disease Control stories that 36.2% of Texas highschool college students are sexually lively, a quantity that has fallen 19% since 2001. Most center and highschool college students are usually not having sex. While teen being pregnant continues to be a public well being concern, our efforts ought to focus past being pregnant.

Sexually transmitted illness instances are rising at alarming charges. According to Dallas County Health and Human Services, “Dallas County has alarming STD and HIV rates among our youth.” Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis have all elevated. Tragically, Texas ranks No. 1 within the nation for congenital syphilis charges; 528 infants have been born contaminated in 2019. Unfortunately, the brand new curriculum stories syphilis “has been on the decline in recent years.”

By far the most typical STD amongst younger individuals is human papillomavirus, which may trigger genital warts and several other kinds of most cancers. The CDC lists condoms as offering restricted safety from syphilis and the least safety in opposition to HPV, as each are skin-based infections, a truth not included within the new curriculum.

The new Health TEKS (instructing requirements) and Texas Education Code 28.004 require medically correct, age-appropriate instruction on the bodily and emotional harms of untimely sexual exercise and the “centrality of abstinence from sexual activity.” Somehow those that oppose this abstinence focus have purported the concept this method withholds vital information from college students. Giving college students medically correct information in regards to the “effectiveness and the risks and failure rates of barrier protection and other contraceptive methods in the prevention of STDs/STIs and pregnancy” (as required within the TEKS) helps them make knowledgeable selections. Unfortunately, the brand new curriculum provides medically inaccurate and incomplete information about each STDs and being pregnant.

There isn’t any “safe sex” for center and highschool college students. Promoting condoms and consent as “responsible sex,” as the brand new curriculum does, is deceptive and violates the state-approved requirements for sex ed in Texas. For years, proponents of complete sex schooling have pushed for condoms and contraception use amongst teenagers, and for years, the share of sexually lively teenagers utilizing them has hovered at simply round a half. Condom-based schooling assumes risk-taking adolescents (many inebriated or medicine) will efficiently navigate the steps to correct use each time they’ve sex. The CDC lists 12 Do’s and Don’ts and 6 steps to right use. (The new DISD curriculum solely provides 5). And the CDC is obvious: Even if teenagers do all the things proper, there would nonetheless be solely restricted safety in opposition to human papillomavirus.

Furthermore, all speak of contraception minimizes the well-documented emotional dangers of youngster sex. The elevated threat of stress, anxiousness and melancholy are particularly required within the TEKS, however are usually not within the new DISD curriculum.

Consider the distinction between decreasing threat and avoiding threat. The legal guidelines in Texas require that we train college students to keep away from sexual exercise and its related dangers. DISD’s new curriculum teaches threat discount, with out disclosing how restricted the discount could or will not be. The argument is at all times made that many children will nonetheless have sex. With the brand new TEKS, these college students will precisely be taught their choices for contraception and the significance of standard testing and remedy for STDs. They may also be taught they at all times have the choice to “return to abstinence.” Students in Dallas ISD gained’t.

I’ve labored within the sex schooling area since 1995. The arguments in opposition to an abstinence focus haven’t modified: abstinence doesn’t work, just isn’t medically correct, withholds information, is fear-based, is shame-based, and excludes many college students. These assertions are usually not details. The abstinence focus of the brand new TEKS and the state legal guidelines for sex schooling promote the present and future well-being of all college students. The method is medically correct, age-appropriate, evidence-informed, inclusive and trauma-informed. No matter his or her previous expertise, whether or not it was chosen or compelled upon them, each baby is given the chance to make the very best decisions going ahead.

When the adults who love and care for youngsters, in school and at house, give clear steerage and help for wholesome relationships and the healthiest behaviors, our college students will thrive bodily, emotionally, and relationally. Our households and communities can be stronger, and we’ll collectively get our details straight about sex schooling.

Lori Kuykendall is a well being educator and president of Beacon Health Education Resources. She wrote this for The Dallas Morning News.

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