Materials sent to MCEA 2/4/2013

 

From: David Fishback <fishbackpflag@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 9:26 PM
Subject: Re my meeting with Chris Barclay
To: "Israel, Tom" <tisrael@mceanea.org>, "Gerson, Jon" <JGerson@mceanea.org>


Dear Tom and Jon,

I had a very productive breakfast meeting with Chris last Friday.  He told me that he plans to bring the issue up with his fellow Board members and with Josh Starr in the near future (presumably, within the next month or so). 

Attached is the material I sent him after the meeting. 

Any additional input from MCEA would be very appreciated.

Thanks,

David

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Fishback <fishbackpflag@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 12:13 PM
Subject: Re our meeting yesterday on the health education curriculum
To: Christopher_Barclay@mcpsmd.org

Dear Chris, 

Thank you so much for taking the time yesterday to talk with me about the way forward regarding the needed additions to the health education curriculum with respect to sexual orientation and identity.   I continue to appreciate your wisdom and sensitivity on these issues. 

Attached, as we discussed yesterday, is a History of the MCPS Respect for Differences in Human Sexuality Curriculum: 2006 to 2012, along with three PDFs containing the background documents.  Volumes II and III are the current 8^th and 10^th Grade units, which have been in place since the summer of 2007, but have not been revisited since that time.  Volume I contains all the other background materials, including the 2007 State Board of Education and 2008 Montgomery County Circuit Court decisions that definitively established that MCPS has the right to include in its health education curriculum information from mainstream medical professionals.   

 

 The Respect for Differences in Human Sexuality curriculum recognizes the importance of providing accurate information to all students, whether gay or straight – explaining that

 

Educating all people about sexual orientation and homosexuality is likely to diminish anti-gay prejudice. Accurate information about homosexuality is especially important to young people who are first discovering and seeking to understanding their sexuality – whether homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual.

[Vol. I at 1, Vol. III at 28]. 

 

Thus, we need to let LGBT students know that they are not ill, and to let other students know that LGBT people cannot simply decide to conform (or be “treated” to conform) to the majority sexual orientation.  These are not controversial propositions; indeed they have been stated repeatedly by every mainstream American medical and mental health professional association.  

It is good that the Department of Student Services provides to guidance counselors and school psychologists the resources necessary to respond to those most pressing concerns of many students who feel same sex attractions: 

            “Is there something wrong with me?”   

            “Is there anything I can do to change my sexual orientation?”   

When a student is in crisis, those MCPS personnel can provide help. 

But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  While the health education curriculum contains excellent material, it does not deal with these two compelling concerns.  While health education teachers are instructed to tell students who ask about whether being gay is an illness that the American Psychiatric Association says that it is not an illness, too many students may be too shy or afraid to ask.  And, given the tightly-scripted nature of those units, health education teachers must be silent about the reparative therapy canards touted by groups like PFOX -- even in response to a question. Moreover, students who are not gay are not provided information on these two vital issues at all – since they are not likely to have any cause to raise these issues with their guidance counselors or school psychologies.  But if this information is proactively included in the health education curriculum, we are far more likely to be able to prevent anti-gay prejudice and individual crises.   

The time is long-past due to correct these omissions in the health education curriculum, as the Board’s Citizens Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development has urged repeatedly, joined by the MCPS medical advisors from the Maryland Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and, most recently, by the Montgomery County Commission on Children and Youth.  

Based on my private conversations and public statements, I believe that every adult member of the Board of Education agrees with the substance of what has been recommended. (I have not had occasion to speak with the student member about this issue).  Dr. Starr certainly made his views known last winter.  To the extent there may have been concerns about legal impediments following the 2005 legal ambush on MCPS by PFOX and others, the 2007-08 litigation swept them away. It would be embarrassing for MCPS to continue to not to act due to fears of empty threats from groups like PFOX.  

I look forward to prompt MCPS action on this matter, which is so vitally important to the health of so many of our children.  Six years is certainly long enough to have waited for these simple steps to be taken. Thank you, again.

                                                                                                                                                      David