JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Duval County school board is moving forward with changes to its health classes and sex education policy, including possibly splitting up health glasses for students from 6th-8th grade by their gender.
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The district’s policy handbook review committee went over the change along with a list of other curriculum changes during its meeting on Wednesday, which included changes to how sex education is taught in schools.
One of the board members brought up a concern over how exactly health classes would be split up, should the policy change end up getting approved. It was over the new policy not mentioning, specifically, how students who identify as male, female or nonbinary would be placed between health classes.
“How are we looking at whether female will be comfortable with a male saying ‘hey I’m a female,’ and vice versa?” the board member asked.
Superintendent Dr. Christopher Bernier took the question, saying, firstly, that classes would be split for students by the gender assigned to them at birth, lining up with the Florida law allowing health classes to be taught by gender.
He added any parents uncomfortable with the changing of classes would have the chance to opt-out. The school board said parents would be made aware of any changes to their student’s health classes both with a physical paper and electronically.
Last month, Action News Jax told you about the school board’s consideration of changing the way sex education is taught in schools, which was also included in the policy changes brought up in Wednesday’s meeting. Board members shared concerns they received from parents that the policy sets abstinence, or saving sex until marriage, as a standard for the district, which is already the standard in Florida, but doesn’t mention teaching about ways to prevent pregnancies.
“It has been scaled back, limited information that is provided on contraceptives. We don’t particularly talk about condoms like we have in the past,” one of the district officials said in response to the concerns.
It’s worth noting the policy surrounding sex education changes does mention it will teach students about “ways to control the spread” of sexually transmitted diseases, like AIDS. The policy also would reserve education on STDs for students in grades 6-12.
The school board still needs to make a final approval of these changes before they can happen. The next chance of this happening is in the next school board meeting, which is set for April 1st.
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