Indian River OKs health curriculum with LGBT terms

After months of discussion and painstaking review, the Indian River School District’s Board of Education approved a unified health curriculum to be taught at the high school level, which will include the definitions of sexual orientations.

The curriculum was vetted in detail by a sub-committee after school board member Shaun Fink objected to the terms’ inclusion in a teacher’s guide. In interviews outside of public meetings, Fink stated that his Christian faith shapes everything he does, and that he thinks it is wrong to teach children it is OK to be gay.

Fink sat in every sub-committee meeting reviewing what should be kept the same in the teacher’s guide and accompanying exercises, and what should be changed. The biggest difference between the approved curriculum and the original is how the terms lesbian, gay, homosexual, heterosexual and others are defined – while previously definitions provided by HealthSmart were used, in the new curriculum teachers will use Webster’s Dictionary.

The teacher’s guide is a reference for instructors as they go through the curriculum’s scope and sequence.

The terms aren’t mandatory vocabulary terms, Director of Curriculum and Instruction LouAnn Hudson said — they’re used as part of a discussion. The topics of sexual orientation and gender identity are included in the scope and sequence for the sexual health launch lesson, so when that topic is discussed those terms are likely to be used, Hudson said.

For example, the original version of the teacher’s guide discussing homosexuality read: “Some people are sexually attracted to the same sex — boys to boys or girls to girls. The term for this type of attraction is homosexual or gay.”

Now teachers need to stay within parameters of the dictionary definitions, such as “Definition of homosexual: of, relating to, or characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward another of the same sex; of, relating to, or involving sexual intercourse between persons of the same sex.”

The Board of Education voted unanimously to approve the curriculum. Fink supported the curriculum, with the changes that were made.

“It’s a good curriculum,” he said. “When this thing started it was a propaganda piece for the gay rights agenda.”

Fink also voted in favor of the curriculum despite its inclusion of lessons about pregnancy, STD and HIV prevention. Fink said he would have preferred to have a abstinence-only curriculum, but acknowledged they needed to include the information to stick to state standards.

Hudson and other administrators presented the curriculum to the board ahead of the vote. Only one question was addressed, about teaching students about male self-exams and breast self-exams, which will be taught separately. The rest of the lessons will be co-ed.

“A lot of hard work went into this,” board member James Hudson said before the board voted.

Those in favor voted “aye,” with a silence meeting a call for opposition. While the discussion surrounding the curriculum came in with a roar from about 100 protestors, it went out with a small group of less than a dozen, still prepared with picket signs at the ready, who loudly applauded the decision.

rpacella@dmg.gannett.com

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