Gazette Letter: 8/1/07

 Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2007

Open forum: Policies on opting-in unchanged

Martha Schaerr’s letter (‘‘Three reasons to reject sex-ed lessons,” July 25) criticizes the school system’s revisions to the health unit on Family Life and Human Sexuality.

First, she asserts that dangers of about sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are ignored in the revisions. But those dangers are discussed in a separate unit in the health curriculum.

Second, Ms. Schaerr asserts that the lessons are flawed because they ‘‘teach that any range of negative attitudes toward homosexuality is homophobia.” But the new lessons explicitly define homophobia only as ‘‘an extreme or irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people.” As the school system staff noted in its Jan. 9 report to the Board of Education, ‘‘[t]his definition of homophobia excludes civil expressions of disagreement.”

Third, she expresses concern that ‘‘the previous flexibility that allowed parents to opt their children out of all or part of the curriculum has been eliminated.” But, under state law, students may not opt-out of the entire health education curriculum, but must opt-in to those units in the curriculum dealing with matters of sexuality. The new lessons are an integral part of the unit on Family Life and Human Sexuality, and the policies on opting-in to that unit are unchanged.

David S. Fishback, Olney

The writer was chair of the Board of Education’s Citizens Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development from 2003-05.