Washington Blade - July 27, 2007
Lou Chibbaro Jr

The 43-page draft document, Health Learning Standards, also calls for teaching sixth grade students that "people, regardless of biological sex, gender, ability, sexual orientation, gender identity and culture, have sexual feeling and the need for love, affection and physical intimacy."

But the proposed standards stop short of giving D.C. public school teachers permission to inform students that the American Psychiatric and Psychological associations and the medical establishment consider homosexuality to be a normal variation of human sexuality.

Last month, Montgomery County, Md., public school officials gave final approval to a controversial, gay-inclusive sex education program that allows teachers to tell students who ask that homosexuality is not a psychiatric disorder or mental illness.

The proposed D.C. school standards cover a wide range of health-related issues aimed at students from kindergarten to grade 10, with specific gay-related topics starting in the sixth grade.

School officials said the proposed standards arenot the same as a school curriculum and that a new sex education and health curriculum would be developed in the near future based on parameters set by the standards.

The standards include instruction on "disease prevention and treatment" that cover AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Sexual abstinence is recommended, but the standards also call for informing students in upper grades that the use of condoms is important for those who are sexually active.

"Reflecting a strong consensus among educators, these standards establish high expectations for all students," states an introduction to the draft document. "They detail the knowledge and skills that students need to maintain and improve their health and wellness, prevent disease and reduce health-related risk behaviors."

The name of the school system's newly appointed chancellor, Michelle Rhee, appears on the document's cover page.

The D.C. Healthy Youth Coalition, an alliance of 32 local groups working on youth-related health issues, including the Whitman-Walker Clinic and the Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League, expressed general support for the proposed standards while calling for some changes.

The coalition noted that the D.C. Public School System recently posted the proposed standards on the school system's web site after school officials released the document on July 2 and received "little public feedback."

School officials had been working on the proposed standards for more than a year. The draft was completed shortly after D.C. Council voted to approve Mayor Adrian Fenty's request to transfer full control of the schools from an elected school board to the Office of the Mayor.

"The posted draft health learning standards have addressed almost all the recommendations that our coalition made back in March," said Jeremy Ogusky, deputy director of Metro Teen AIDS, a D.C. group that provides HIV prevention services to gay youth.

"In my view, and that of a number of national health and sex education experts, these new standards are well written, complete and strongly based in comprehensive sex education," Ogusky said in an e-mail message sent to members of the Healthy Youth Coalition.

Ogusky said coalition officials arranged for four nationally recognized experts on school sex education curricula and teen health issues to review the proposed standards and make recommendations on possible changes. The experts, led by Douglas Kirby, senior research scientist for the California-based ETR Associates, a non-profit group that specializes in sex education programs, issued a three-page document outlining their recommendations.

Among them is a call for including in the standards an assertion that sexual orientation is a variation of human sexuality and homosexuality is not a mental illness.

Metro Teen AIDS director Adam Tenner said the Healthy Teen Coalition is reviewing the recommendations and will decide soon which ones to submit to public school officials as the coalition's official recommendations.

The proposed standards state that an eighth grade lesson on "Sexuality, Reproduction and Health" should "compare and contrast the theories about what determines sexual orientation, including genetics; prenatal, social and cultural influences; psychosocial factors; and a combination of all of these."

According to the proposed standards, the eighth grade lesson also should "define sexual orientation, using correct terminology, and explain that as people grow and develop they may begin to feel romantically and/or sexually attracted to people of a different gender and/or to people of the same gender."

"Kudos for having this here and having it in the 8th grade," the Healthy Youth Coalition's recommendations state. The coalition's recommendations call for going "where Montgomery County went and SPECIFY under the discussion of theories that sexual orientation variation is NOT a mental illness or necessarily problematic."

The Healthy Youth Coalition recommendations call for these additional changes or additions:

-- Add more information about transgender issues in a separate lesson for ninth grade students.

-- Add information on the "skills related to saying no to unwanted, unintended or unprotected sex" and on "insisting on using condoms or other forms of contraception."

-- Add information about masturbation, which is not included in the standards, and on "the range of sexual behaviors that are open to young people other than intercourse."

-- Add specific instructional information on how to use condoms effectively and where to get them.

Marc Clark, the school system's director of health operations, said the city's elected board of education, now called the State Board of Education, must approve the standards following a period of public comment.

Clark said school system standards and curricula in effect since 1979 allow the teaching of human sexuality but do not provide the specific topics on gay issues and other subjects included in the proposed new standards. He said the new standards would be used as a foundation to develop a new sex education curriculum that is to incorporate the topics included in the standards.

Officials with the local groups Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League, Parents & Friends of Lesbians & Gays, and Metro Teen AIDS, which provide services for gay and transgender youth, have said their respective groups have participated in class discussions with students on gay-related issues in some D.C. high schools and middle schools.

"My guess is it's hit or miss," said Linda Garnett, executive director of the D.C. PFLAG chapter. "It's often up to the principle or the teacher to decide whether to have us there."

Garnett said gay and lesbian students have told PFLAG instructors they wished they had taken a gay-inclusive sex education class at an earlier age.

"Many kids still tell us they would have greatly benefited if someone told them they were not sick or crazy," Garnett said.

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