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Mail
Magazine 24
Chicago
public schools will start
sex education in kindergarten
by Eric Owens
The
dismally low graduation rate
for students who attend Chicago Public Schools is barely over 60
percent –
substantially lower than the national rate of roughly 75 percent.
Nevertheless,
citizens of the Second City will surely take heart, because the Chicago
Board
of Education just passed a new policy that requires sex education to
begin in
kindergarten.
The
new policy, which was passed on
Wednesday, according to ABC News, is part of a broader makeover of the
school
district’s sexual health program.
Sometime
within the next two years,
students in every grade, including kindergarten, will be required to
spend a
certain amount of time on the birds and the bees.
Mandated
sex-ed for Chicago
kindergartners will include instruction about male and female anatomy
and
reproduction. It’s not clear exactly how much detail five- and
six-year-olds
will be taught concerning the more sophisticated uses of their genitals.
By
the time students get to third
and fourth grade, the focus will include appropriate and inappropriate
touching, as well as puberty and HIV/AIDS.
Coursework
from fifth grade to 12th
grades will concentrate on sexually-transmitted diseases and
contraception.
Abstinence will reportedly be presented as a possible method of birth
control.
Sexual orientation, gender identity and bullying related to those
things will
also be part of the curriculum at some point from fifth grade to 12th
grade, as
well.
One
of the stated goals of the
policy is to bring the Chicago Public Schools into accord with the
national
HIV/AIDS strategy of the Obama administration, notes ABC.
“It
is important that we provide
students of all ages with accurate and appropriate information so they
can make
healthy choices in regards to their social interactions, behaviors and
relationships,” Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett said in
a
statement.
Response
from parents who have
children in the Chicago Public Schools was mixed, reports Fox News.
“I
don’t think its
age-appropriate,” parent Melissa Diebold told MyFoxChicago.com. “They
have no
concept of anything like that at that stage in life.”
Mikkel
Nance, another parent, is
more optimistic.
“[T]he
only concern is how they
implement it, and if they involved parents in that process and if they
do so
they’ll make that transition smoothly,” Nance told the local Fox
affiliate.
Parents
can remove their children
from the sexual health education program if they want, but the apparent
default
is for kindergartners to learn about sex.
Chicago’s
public school system is
the nation’s third-largest school district, with approximately 431,000
students.
Source:
dailycaller.com
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