May 10, 2012
VIA E-MAIL AND FIRST CLASS MAIL
Dr. Joshua P. Starr, Superintendent
Montgomery County Public Schools
850 Hungerford Drive
Rockville, Maryland 20850
RE: Health Education Curriculum: Respect for Differences in Human Sexuality
Dear Superintendent Starr:
Thank you, again, for your strong statement in February condemning the fliers distributed by PFOX. The outrage at those fliers has highlighted and heightened the need for the MCPS curriculum to add some vital and basic information that has been endorsed by every mainstream American medical and mental health professional association, as well as by the MCPS Department of Student Services, MCPS health education advisors from the Maryland Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Board of Education’s Citizens Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development. As parents of gay children and as people who have worked with MCPS and with County students on these issues for years, we believe that the simple things needed to correct the glaring omissions should be completed in time for the next semester. This is not an abstraction. Our concern is rooted in what we hear from students. We would like to meet with you on this issue at your earliest convenience.
BACKGROUND
In June 2007, the Board of Education approved the Respect for Differences in Human Sexuality units for the 8th and 10th Grade Health Education Curriculum. Notwithstanding legal efforts by PFOX, the curriculum was implemented in the Autumn 2007 semester. In January 2008, the Montgomery County Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the PFOX suit, definitively establishing the right of MCPS to include in its health education curriculum concepts endorsed by mainstream American medical and mental health professional associations without having to also include viewpoints that oppose the mainstream consensus.
In the ensuing five years, MCPS has not reviewed the Respect for Differences in Human Sexuality units, notwithstanding the September 28, 2010 recommendation from the Maryland Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which advised MCPS in the lead-up to the 2007 curriculum revisions and the April 13,2011 recommendation from the Board’s CitizensAdvisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development that additional information be included in the units. (See attachments to Attachment A) Those recommendations include the following:
** Homosexuality is not a disease or a mental illness [N.B.: Teachers currently can only convey this in response to a question].
** Sexual orientation is not a choice and the American Medical Association opposes "therapies" that seek to change sexual orientation that are premised on the assumption that people should change their sexual orientation.1
** Children raised by same-sex couples do just as well as those raised by heterosexuals, and are no more likely to be homosexual.
** Homosexuals can live happy, successful lives; they can be successful parents.2
On September 13, 2011, MCPS Staff provided a very brief memorandum to the Board referencing the existence of the April 2011 Citizens Advisory Committee recommendations, but not explaining what those recommendations were. At that time, the Board was told that the "family life curriculum is not slated for revision." (See Attachment B; the key portion is noted on the last page.)
COURSE OF ACTION
After five years, it is now time to revisit the curriculum and to include the simple statements urged by the MCPS advisors from the AAP and the Board’s own Citizens Advisory Committee. Such inclusion would not necessitate a full rewriting of the curriculum - the inclusions need only be added to the extensions, with instructions to convey the information. Thus, an extended additional review is neither necessary nor wanted. Particularly given the controversy caused by PFOX, these updates should be in place next semester.
The proposed additions have already been considered, not just by the Board’s Citizens Advisory Committee, but also by the MCPS Department of Student Services. Since 2009, MCPS pupil personnel workers (PPWs), including guidance counselors and school psychologists, have been provided with documents from the American Psychological Association3 and the American Academy of Pediatrics4 that confirm these propositions. In Quick Tips When Counseling Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered or Questioning (LGBTQ) Students (Attachment C), PPWs are informed that
Medical, psychological, and counseling professional organizations.., concur that homosexuality is not a disorder or condition that needs to be cured or changed ...[.and [p]ractices to attempt to change sexual orientation are not warranted. These practices are not effective and are not safe. Outcomes of such attempts include increased depression and suicide.
But since the general school population does not get the benefit of this information -- information which would aid in lessening the bullying and homophobic actions that still occur in our schools -- it needs to be in the health curriculum, as well.
As shown by the Department of Student Services/PPW material; MCPS’s participation in the Bullying in School: A Community Symposium on February 4, 20!2, conducted by the Montgomery County Office of Human Rights; and your statement about the recent PFOX fliers; it seems clear to us that all relevant MCPS policy-makers understand the need to affirmatively convey this information. Since the Citizens Advisory Co~mnittee has already made these recommendations, you have the authority to recolmr~end these additions to the Board of Education pursuant to Code of Maryland Regulations (COMAR) 13A.04.18.01 .F(2) (Attachment D). Th(se recommendations could be made at the May 21, June 14, or June 25 Board of Education meetings, in time for approval for inclusion for the Autumn 2012 semester.
The recent controversy over the PFOX fliers highlights why it is so important for MCPS to add the material to the health education curriculum that was recommended by the AAP and the Citizens Advisory Committee. The curriculum says nothing about what you rightly called "deplorable and disgusting" -- specifically the canard that people can find therapies to "cure" them of being gay., This has not been a dispute between two interest groups. Rather, it is a dispute between the mainstream medical and mental health professional community on the one hand, and those who cannot accept what we have learned about the human condition on the other. But even if there are no fliers in the future, the information needs to be in the curriculum. PFOX and related groups are relentless in their efforts. PFOX’s insistence on their version of reality is not really different from efforts of the American Tobacco Institute to insist that smoking was not a cancer risk or addictive. MCPS surely would not shrink from rebutting any such American Tobacco Institute campaign; it should do no less with respect to PFOX.
There may be some at MCPS who are reluctant to do anything, given the traumatic experience of 2005, when MCPS was blind-sided with an 1lth hour legal ambush by PFOX. But we need not fear a repetition of such a crisis. In 2007, MCPS and PFLAG (which participated in the second round of litigation as an amicus curiae) were prepared, and secured the 2008 Montgomery County Circuit Court decision that definitively put these issues to rest.
These issues are well-settled and have been well-studied within MCPS. Now is time for prompt action so that the deficiencies may be remedied in time for the next semester.
Please let us know how we may be of assistance in assuring prompt action. We both would be happy to brief you further on this issue, and on why prompt action is needed.
Attachments A-D
Cc: Shirley Brandman, President
Montgomery County Board of Education
Sincerely,
David S. Fishback, Advocacy Chair Metro DC Chapter of PFLAG
Olney, Maryland
Stephanie Kreps, Director and Founder Rainbow Youth Alliance
Gaithersburg, MD
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