Dive Brief:
- Parents are pushing back against an alleged proposal for Clark County School District to teach students as young as kindergarten about masturbation and sexuality.
- The Clark County School Board, which represents the nation's fifth-largest school district, created the 101 pages of sex ed suggestions hoping to make the district's sex ed programs more "comprehensive."
- Until 2004, the district taught abstinence-only sex ed, and while contraceptive options have been mentioned in classes during the past decade, curriculum has still remained very abstinence-centric.
Dive Insight:
Probably more worrisome than the sex ed suggestions is how the school board is going about the review and implementation of the proposal. According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, the meetings have been behind closed doors with only selected "community members" invited.
The Review Journal also reports that Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky spoke with about 50 parents after the closed board meeting, assuring them that the board is merely getting ideas and community input and that nothing is being implemented into the district's 357 schools.
Perhaps this would be more clear if the meeting wasn't closed?