Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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San Francisco Examiner - January 18, 2005
Bonnie Eslinger, Staff Writer
Tony Andrade is pushing forward an initiative that would amend California's education laws to eliminate any discussion of sexuality from elementary-age classrooms and require written approval from parents of students grades seven through 12 every time issues of sexuality were to be discussed in class. He hopes to have it on the ballot for the March special election.
"What we said was before the teachers can go ahead and discuss things like homosexuality, sodomy, necrophilia, bestiality, and fellatio, they need to notify the parents," said Andrade. "The schools should not be in the sex business."
Other sex-ed topics listed in the proposed amendment that would warrant clear-cut parental approval, include bisexuality, transexuality, domestic partnerships and masturbation.
If the initiative passes it would restrict discussions in all classrooms, not just sex-ed, as well as prohibit fliers that promote such events as gay alliance gatherings, which Andrade said were used to "recruit" students to the try homosexuality.
California law already requires that schools give parents advance notice about sexual education teachings, provide instructional materials for review, and allow parents to "opt out" their kids from any lesson. Andrade's initiative would require schools to send notices 10-15 days prior for each lesson and put the burden on schools to get a parent signature of approval each time.
Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who is gay, called the initiative a clear attempt to "frighten Californians" into thinking that kids are being recruited through discussions about homosexuality on campus. "I think the public will view this attempt for what it is," Leno said. "There's no need for this ballot measure."
The state gave Andrade approval this month to begin collecting petition signatures of registered voters for his measure. He must collect more than 370,000 signatures by June 3, 2005, in order to qualify the measure for next year's March ballot.
San Francisco school officials were not available for comment because the district was closed in observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. In a September interview with The Examiner, Trish Bascom, the district's head of school health programs, said the district agrees that parents should be informed about sex-ed teachings in the classroom.
SEX AND CITY SCHOOLS
A look at the sexual behaviors and sex-ed topics for middle school students within the San Francisco Unified School District:
Data on the sexual behaviors of students in grades six through eight, according to an SFUSD survey conducted in 2003:
* 9 percent reported having had sexual intercourse at least once
* 3 percent reported having their first sexual intercourse before age 11
* 24 percent of sexually active students reported that they did not use a condom during their last sexual intercourse.
SFUSD-approved human-sexuality-related topics for grades six through eight:
* Puberty
* HIV/AIDS
* Anti-homophobia workshop
* Human reproductive anatomy
* Teen pregnancy prevention
* Sexual harassment
* Domestic violence
* Sexually transmitted diseases (seventh and eighth grades)
* Sexual decision-making (seventh and eighth grades)
* Birth control methods (seventh and eighth grades)
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