State Curriculum Shift Has Parents Up In Arms
A Colorado school district is facing demands to discontinue a sexuality-education curriculum after a parental-rights organization raised objections to material taught to students beginning in kindergarten.
The Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter to the Roaring Fork Schools Board of Education challenging the district's use of the 3Rs curriculum, short for “Rights, Respect, Responsibility.” The program was developed by Advocates for Youth and covers sexuality, relationships, anatomy, reproduction and gender across multiple grade levels.
Katherine L. Anderson, director of ADF's Center for Parental Rights, argued that some of the material is too explicit for young children and that parents should have greater control over whether their children participate.
According to Anderson's letter, kindergarten students are taught to identify anatomical parts including the nipples, vulva and anus on female anatomy and the nipples, penis and anus on male anatomy.
The lesson reportedly includes a presentation titled “Understanding Our Bodies,” featuring anatomical illustrations.
Anderson also quoted curriculum material explaining to children that there are “some body parts that mostly just girls have and some body parts that mostly just boys have.”
Another part of the kindergarten material, according to the letter, involves teachers helping students understand “how they like to be touched.”
That wording is likely to draw particular attention from parents, although the purpose and complete context of the lesson matter when assessing what teachers are actually being instructed to discuss with students.
The lessons continue in subsequent grades.
According to Anderson, first-grade students receive worksheets addressing reproduction. By second grade, the “Understanding Our Bodies” material becomes mandatory and includes more detailed anatomical illustrations with labeled reproductive anatomy.
Anderson's letter also objects to material discussing gender concepts with second-grade students, including treatment of the “binary construct of gender.”
The 3Rs organization describes its curriculum differently from ADF. According to its website, the program is intended to provide “functional knowledge related to sexuality” while teaching skills necessary for healthy behavior. Its framework draws from social learning theory, social cognitive theory and a social ecological model of prevention.
The dispute, therefore, isn't simply about whether schools should teach health or anatomy. It concerns what information is appropriate at particular ages, how it is presented and how much authority parents should have before their children participate.
ADF wants Roaring Fork Schools to stop using the curriculum altogether.
The Post Independent reported that Anderson called on the district to “immediately discontinue using the 3Rs curriculum.”
If the district refuses, ADF is asking for a significant change to the participation process: Instead of requiring parents to remove their children from the lessons, the organization wants students excluded by default unless their parents specifically authorize participation.
“At minimum, Roaring Fork Schools implement an opt-in procedure that ensures parents can exercise their fundamental right to direct the upbringing and education of their children by automatically exempting all children from the explicit content except for those children whose parents choose to opt in,” Anderson wrote.
That proposal gets to one of the central practical disputes surrounding controversial school curricula.
An opt-out system presumes participation unless parents intervene. An opt-in system reverses that arrangement, requiring affirmative parental permission before a child receives the material.
For parents who regard the lessons as ordinary health education, the distinction may appear procedural. For parents who consider some of the material inappropriate for five-, six- or seven-year-olds, it is much more consequential.
The allegations in ADF's letter also need to be distinguished from broader claims about the motives of educators or LGBT people. The cited material can be evaluated on what it actually contains without assuming that teachers are attempting to change children's sexual orientation or gender identity. No evidence presented here establishes such a motive.
There is, however, a legitimate and specific question for Roaring Fork Schools to answer: Why are these particular lessons appropriate for children at each grade level, and what control should parents have over their children's participation?