It’s awfully early in the school year to be earning Fs on any report card. But, sure enough, the State of Florida just earned an F grade from the national nonprofit Sex Ed for Social Change. The grade is deserved due to the DeSantis administration spending several years actively discouraging the teaching of anything related to sex in K-12 schools — even the teaching of basic anatomy.
DeSantis’s lack of support for sex-ed illustrates a bigger issue: the natural tension between individual freedom (parental control over sex-ed in this case) and societal health and safety — in this case, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, and sexual violence.
The DeSantis team consistently backs parental freedom in this and most other societal issues. (Except notably in gender dysphoria cases.) Their recent move to end vaccine mandates in schools is another example of individual freedom over the good of the whole.
Society suffers from sick kids, pregnant teens, and victims of sexual violence. We need well-trained educators teaching sexuality education starting in at least middle school and continuing throughout high school to prevent life-changing consequences. Elissa Barr, a public health professor at the University of North Florida, says: “Sex ed is sexual abuse prevention. It’s dating violence prevention. And it just helps young people develop healthier relationships and actually delay sexual initiation. … So for us to cut contraceptive information and education is really doing young people a disservice. It’s very harmful.”
I taught middle-school science in Central Florida for many years. For 10 of those years, I was my school’s point person for implementing OCPS’s science-based, sex-ed curriculum. This instruction amounted to one week of lessons in science classes at the end of the school year. Every year I felt that this was the week that I made my greatest contribution to our societal good. DeSantis did away with this curriculum a few years ago, replacing it with very limited options.
From direct observation, I can share some basics regarding youth and sex-ed: 1. Kids need accurate information; 2. Kids want accurate information; 3. Kids do not have accurate information on most everything relating to sex; 4. Kids watch porn (reread No. 3, please); 5. Kids engage in sexual acts with each other (some starting in middle school or earlier); 6. Most parents do not say a word to their kids about the dynamic and truly dangerous issues related to sexual activity; 7. A vast majority of parents were supportive and relieved to discover that my public school had a science-based, sex-ed curriculum; and 8. Over the course of 10 years of teaching sex-ed, only two parents opted their student out of the curriculum.
The curriculum I taught, which emphasized the importance of abstinence at every turn, filled a couple of binders that were always in the school library for parental review. One small piece of one lesson discussed pubic lice — commonly known as “crabs.” We would advise kids not to share towels in high school sports locker rooms. We suggested that they also avoid the clothes and bedding of brothers or sisters that might be sexually active. I’m not sure most parents know how to discuss this type of information with their kids. If not explicitly banned, this guidance in schools is certainly discouraged by the DeSantis administration.
There are times that individual freedoms are compromised for the societal good. We have harsh penalties for drunk driving for this very reason. We also presently require some vaccines for school age students. In the case of sex education, a few parents that don’t want their kids exposed to sex-ed lessons should not be empowered to end the teaching and learning of critical health and safety information for all.
James Lis taught public school science for 20 years and taught sex-ed for 10 of those years in Orange County Public Schools.
