A yearslong process to implement comprehensive sexual health education in Battle Ground Public Schools is poised for final approval as the district’s board of directors approved the first reading of the curriculum at its April 25 meeting.
The BGPS Board of Directors voted 3-2 to approve the sex ed curriculum for fifth through twelfth grades. The curriculum will come back to the board for another vote at its May 9 meeting before the final approval.
The approved curriculum will utilize two publishers. Fifth and sixth grades will use The Great Body Shop, while older grades will use Goodheart-Wilcox, which is currently in use at district high schools for general health.
The curriculum was recommended by an 18-member committee, which included district staff and community members that formed in December. That committee was the latest to form to address comprehensive sex ed in BGPS, which has been a yearslong process with twists and turns dating back to 2018.
In 2018, BGPS began the process of looking at a curriculum on the heels of new health teaching guidance at the state level, an explanatory narrative provided at the meeting stated. In 2018, and then again in 2019, the district proposed different compositions of sex ed, though both received enough opposition from the community to have the proposals either withdrawn or outright rejected by the school board.
In October 2019, the BGPS board voted to nix sex ed in the district altogether, which was later amended to allow for an elective course on the subject the following year. In 2020, the state Legislature passed a law requiring the subject to be taught in schools, which was affirmed by approval of a referendum that November.
Because of the new law, the district had to implement sex ed at the middle school level, leading to the formation of a committee in 2021. The proposed curriculum came to a final vote before the BGPS board decided to look at a publisher proposed by community members, though ultimately the committee did not recommend the adoption of that curriculum.
Due to a lack of alignment in what was being proposed for middle school sex ed and what was already taught at the high school level, the latest committee convened in December to create a sex ed curriculum that aligned across the grade levels.
That committee looked at four different publishers: Goodheart-Wilcox, The Great Body Shop, HealthSmart and Check the Facts. Of the last two, HealthSmart was on the table for middle school sex ed in 2021, and Check the Facts was the curriculum proposed by community members but rejected by the committee that year.
Both of those curriculums also came up short in the latest round of work to pick sex ed courses. Ahead of discussion by the board at the April 25 meeting, BGPS Superintendent Denny Waters said Check the Facts “was simply not ready.” Waters said the program didn’t include key components like high school courses. The narrative provided to the board stated the committee favored a combination of the other two publishers over HealthSmart, even though HealthSmart was the initial selection for middle school sex ed the prior year.
Part of the committee’s reasoning to go with Goodheart-Wilcox was because it already is being used at the high school level. For fifth and sixth grade, the magazine-like presentation of The Great Body Shop made it appealing for younger students, the committee reasoned.
Community, board member concerns
During the process, the district invited the community to review and provide feedback on each publisher considered. Allison Tuchardt, the BGPS co-director of curriculum, instruction and assessment, said the district received 107 responses. That number represents less than 1% of those enrolled in the district, but amounted to about 100 times the amount of comments other curriculums received.
“When we have a CTE review or if we have a math review, we very rarely get comments,” Tuchardt said.
Responses for the most part were similar to the feedback the district received in the past, fellow curriculum co-director David Cresap said. There were “strong opinions either way” on teaching comprehensive sex ed in general, but there were not many comments on the specifics on what would be taught.
The survey included a question about whether community members would opt their students out of learning the curriculum.
Goodheart-Wilcox had the lowest number of responses for opting out of sex ed altogether at 47%, with the next-lowest being Check the Facts at 57%.
Cresap noted the responses aren’t necessarily indicative of the district as a whole given the respondents were self-selected.
The high number of opt-outs didn’t sit right with board member Ted Champine, who voted against the curriculum adoption.
“By any measurement or standard, I would consider that a failure of utilization,” Champine said about the opt-out numbers.
If approved by the board at the curriculum’s final reading, the district will form another committee made up of teachers, an administrator and parents to devise a scope and sequence of how the lessons will be implemented.
Champine expressed concerns that the final decision on what will be taught will be left to curriculum directors and teachers. He asked if there was a way to have board oversight during that process, saying he only brought it up given the controversial nature of the subject.
“This is not just approving the next math curriculum,” Champine said.
Superintendent Waters noted the scope and sequence will be available for the board and district families to look over when it is complete.
“(Parents) will know exactly what’s going to be taught in those lessons and that (information) will be readily available,” Waters said.
Waters also pushed back on the idea of increased board oversight during the process.
“You can hold us accountable for that work. At the same time I don’t want to create this atmosphere where teachers are looking over their shoulder wondering if the board is OK with what was taught in a particular class,” Waters said.
Champine also raised a concern about whether students who opted out of the curriculum would be bullied. The board’s nonvoting student representatives said they hadn’t seen much in the way of bullying to those who decided to opt out.
Sydney Cordon, one of the student representatives, said the amount of movement between classes during a general school day would make it hard for students to pinpoint who opted out.
“The majority of students, I would say, didn’t care, who was in the classroom or who wasn’t,” Cordon said.
Alongside Champine, board member Mary Snitily voted against the curriculum approval. She said the curriculum had “odd gaps.” Snitily said the curriculum did not state that it took a biological male and female to reproduce. She noted there was a lack of morality tied to sex other than respecting consent, and a lack of discussion on abortion outside of it being an option for someone who is pregnant.
Snitily stressed that parents against the curriculum should use their ability to opt their children out. Outside of the instruction, Snitily said the requirement from the state highlights the greater issue of deteriorating local control of schools.
“Your state legislators do not believe you should have any control of what your child learns in public school — not at the individual level and not at the district level — when it comes to sex ed,” Snitily said. “You may be advocating for this curriculum, but keep in mind you might be advocating against the next thing that comes along. This is about local versus state control of curriculum.”
