Thursday, January 18, 2007

Curriculum Documents Online

The school district had a package of documents, covering the period when the new sex-ed curriculum was being developed. We've taken the package and broken it out so you can see the different pieces as they relate to one another.

The page is available from our Resources page, or you can just click HERE.

There were three kinds of things developed:
  • A condom lesson for tenth grade
  • Two sexual orientation classes for 8th grade
  • Two sexual orientation classes for 10th grade

Each piece of it has three kinds of documents:
  • The citizen advisory committee's recommended changes to the first MCPS draft
  • MCPS staff response to the recommendations
  • A final draft, ready for pilot testing

The web page also has a memo from Superintendent Jerry Weast to the school board, presenting them with the new material.

Not much to add to that, these documents will be handy if we want to discuss any details of the curriculum.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks, Jim. I think it is important for people to read the documents themselves, rather than the excerpts others pull out.

For instance, that line about people "feeling a new sense of joy" when they come out is on page 9 of the 10th grade FLHS Unit 10.1 in a paragraph headed Challenges and Struggles. After the sentence from which this statement has been excerpted it says,"Others may feel isolated," and goes on to list self-harming behaviors to which some youth turn.

The curricula are scripted, so what you see is what your teens will get.

January 18, 2007 11:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Robert,

Thanks for the heads-up on the CRC statement and the Examiner article. I spoke with Brian Porter's office, and was informed that he has asked the Examiner to publish a correction.

I just sent this letter to the Examiner reporter, with ccs to Brian Edwards and the BOE.

****************************

January 19, 2007

TO: Dana Levitz
The Examiner

FROM: David S. Fishback
Member, Board of Directors, Metro DC Chapter of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbian and Gays (PFLAG)
Former Chair, Citizens Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development to the Montgomery County Board of Education

I just read your January 16, 2007 article on the health education curriculum in Montgomery County, entitled "Students required to take controversial sex-ed class." http://www.examiner.com/a-510689~Students_required_to_take_controversial_sex_ed_class.html (pasted below).

Contrary to the headline and the text of that article, no student is required to take the lessons on sexual orientation or condom use. Rather, as MCPS has made crystal clear, students may only take those units of the health education curriculum if given permission by their parents/guardians, and those who do not take those units receive instruction in other health-related matters -- and that instruction satisfies the state health requirement for graduation. This is plainly presented at p. 4 of Superintendent Weast's January 9, 2007, report to the Board of Education, which I have attached for your convenience. Your article clearly must have taken statements by MCPS Public Affairs Director Brian Edwards grossly out of context.

I would strongly advise that you not take anything presented on this issue by the groups connected to James Dobson and Jerry Falwell at face value. Those groups have misrepresented the facts in the past, and apparently continue to do so.

In any event, it is essential that the Examiner apologize to Mr. Edwards and publish a correction to this egregious error. Reports that generate heat, but not light, do a great disservice to our community.

cc: Brian Edwards
Mongtomery County Board of Education

January 19, 2007 1:57 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The sexual orientation section, oddly enough, is about sexual orientation, which has nothing to do with disease."

If your "orientation" is same gender attraction, acting on the desires will significantly increase your risk of contracting a fatal and uncurable disease. So, it has something to do with it.

January 19, 2007 2:41 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Anonymous said "If your "orientation" is same gender attraction, acting on the desires will significantly increase your risk of contracting a fatal and uncurable disease."

Wrong. Just as in heterosexual relationships there is no risk of disease in monogamous relationship. Risk is related to promiscuity, not orientation.

January 19, 2007 5:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Risk is related to promiscuity, not orientation."

And promiscuity is related to "orientation", to put it euphemistically.

Or "mental disease", to put it accurately.

January 20, 2007 9:35 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

I said "Risk is related to promiscuity, not orientation."

Anonymous said "And promiscuity is related to "orientation", to put it euphemistically.

Or "mental disease", to put it accurately."

That's not the case as I've shown in this thread
http://www.teachthefacts.org/2007/01/whining-with-flags-and-eagles.html#comments

at January 20, 2007 1:47 PM and January 20, 2007 1:59 PM

January 20, 2007 2:24 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nice design of blog.

August 13, 2007 3:38 PM  

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