California Parents Sickened by New Sex-Ed Curriculum

On Tuesday, many parents in San Diego yanked their kids out of school and protested outside the school district’s headquarters, angry over a new sex education curriculum they say is completely out of bounds for their sixth-grade children. The curriculum in question, controversial from the moment it was announced, goes far beyond naming body parts, describing functions, and giving children an overview of the birds and the bees. Instead, it delves deeply into subjects like gender identity, specific forms of birth control, sexually transmitted diseases, and pregnancy while getting in depth about the stages of sexual intercourse.

Parents say the material is “too much, too soon.”

“We’re going to ask them to suspend this new curriculum because it’s not a curriculum for the adolescent brain, it’s an adult curriculum,” one mom told the local CBS 8 affiliate.

“We don’t believe mutual masturbation, oral sex and anal sex should be promoted to our eleven and twelve-year-old kids,” mom and teacher Ashely Bever told KUSI News. “SHEP grooms our sons and daughters for premature sexual interest, experimentation, and engagement, leading to the sexual objectification of our children. We just want the district to step back and start over, partnering with parents so that our kids can truly make healthy sexual choices. Families in San Diego want and deserve a sex ed. program that is age appropriate, evidenced-based, medically accurate, and respects community values.”

In a statement, the school board said that while it was open to dissent, it was confident that the explicit sexual instruction was wholly appropriate for the district’s 11- and 12-year-olds.

“We encourage all parents to learn the facts about sexual health and how we teach it,” they said. “We’ve created a website to make it easy for parents to get the information they need. Our education program was constructed with input from parents, faith leaders and community residents to comply with Assemblywoman Shirley Weber’s California Healthy Youth Act. After being informed about the program, less than 1 percent of parents chose to exclude their children from learning about sexual health when the curriculum was implemented districtwide last school year.”

This is what you call a brush-off. But we’re not sure the hundreds of parents irate at the thought of their kids learning this stuff at such an early age (and from such a dubious source) are going to be pacified quite so easily.