Chicago public schools roll out sex education program, beginning in kindergarten, to discuss gender identity and sexual orientation
A new sexual health program in the Chicago Public Schools mandates that a set amount of time be spent on sex education in every grade, beginning in kindergarten.
The program also will discuss sexual orientation and gender identity for the first time.
President Barack Obama visits a pre-kindergarten in Georgia. The Obama mandates led to the sex education program in Chicago which begins in kindergarten (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Kindergartners and first graders will focus on topics such as anatomy, healthy relationships and personal safety, the Chicago Tribune reported.
In second and third grades, the focus will be on growth and development. Fourth graders will learn about the physical, social and emotional aspects of puberty, along with the causes of HIV transmission, the Tribune reported. After fifth grade, the program will include discussions about human reproduction, healthy decision-making, bullying and contraception.
“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,” Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the CEO of the Chicago Public School System, said in a statement.
“By implementing a new sexual health education policy, we will be helping them to build a foundation of knowledge that can guide them not just in the preadolescent and adolescent years, but throughout their lives,” she said.
“They’re very much pushing an extreme agenda across the board, both to normalize sex and begin the conversation earlier, and in total the K-12 curricula is explicit and not in the best health interests of the young people,” Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association.
The policy also was designed to align with the standards in President Obama’s national HIV/AIDS strategy, unveiled in 2010, according to ABC News.
The vision for that strategy states that the “United States will become a place where new HIV infections are rare and when they do occur, every person, regardless of age, gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or socioeconomic circumstance, will have unfettered access to high quality, life-extending care, free from stigma and discrimination.”
Parents or guardians of students may opt out of Chicago’s new sexual health education program.
Huber said she is “vehemently opposed” to starting sex education in kindergarten.
“I think it really goes back to how we define age appropriate. The groups who are promoting those standards would essentially define age appropriate as anything that can be cognitively understood even though it’s not developmentally appropriate,” Huber told Baptist Press. “So really there are no limits to what you can share as long as you make the vocabulary elementary enough.
“We think that does not make it age appropriate. It breaks down barriers of modesty. It also opens up topics long before the curiosity and the understanding of the child is there, and we think that if there are specific questions, certainly those should be asked, but they should be asked of parents, not in our kindergarten classrooms,” she said.
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