CVUSD and the Health and Sex Ed Curriculum

Folks, please encourage people to have informed, educated conversations about this topic, when they happen. Last night I witnessed mass hysteria as community members at the city council meeting lashed out about our district, asserting that it was working with George Soros and hate groups to teach pornography to our students. When one community member factually stated that no curriculum has been adopted or implemented by the district, the entire crowd boo'd and laughed at the speaker.

As you can plainly see from the fact-based information that follows, this is not true. But it IS what some online groups are telling parents, and it's creating fear and panic, and hoards of misinformed parents and constituents storming local city and school board meetings to denounce things ... that aren't even happening in our district.

This blog addresses some of these false allegations.

Facts about the Health Curriculum & CVUSD:

1) Allegation: The district is teaching kids about SeXXX and using pornographic books such as S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-to-Know Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties,” and “Changing You.”

Truth: These books are not recommended as part of the Heath Curriculum Framework and are not being taught in the district.

Per the CDE:
"On May 8, 2019, the State Board of Education took action to adopt the Health Education Framework with the revisions of removing the following resources:
My Princess Boy
Who Are You?: The Kids Guide to Gender Identity
Changing You!: A Guide to Body Changes and Sexuality
The What's Happening to My Body?: Book for Boys
The What’s Happening to My Body?: Book for Girls
S.E.X: The All You Need to Know Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties
These changes will be made to the final, published version of the 2019 Health Education Framework, which will be posted and published in Fall 2019."

2) Allegation: You can no longer opt your child out of health curriculum or sex ed.

Truth: Per education code 51938: A parent or guardian of a pupil has the right to excuse their child from all or part of comprehensive sexual health education, HIV prevention education, and assessments related to that education through a passive consent (“opt-out”) process. A school district shall not require active parental consent (“opt-in”) for comprehensive sexual health education and HIV prevention education. CVUSD clearly has this statement and code written into its BP and AR documents, as well as the district-sent parental notice informing parents of this right.*

*MORE ON THIS HERE:  The exact quote from article is as follows: "A provision in the law allows parents to opt their children out of the sex ed lessons, but they cannot opt them out of lessons focused on the rights and achievements of LGBT people in other contexts. For example, a parent could not opt their child out of a lesson focused on how LGBTQ students are more susceptible to bullying, or a lesson on the accomplishments of LGBTQ people throughout history." So basically, a parent CAN select to opt out of certain sex ed lessons but allow their child to remain for other sex ed lessons. They just cannot opt out of lessons in other curriculum areas like History, Language Arts, etc in which LGBTQ people are represented.

3) Allegation: CVUSD is "teaching six-year-olds how to be transgender."

Truth: You can't "teach" someone to "be transgender." But further, the CVUSD has made NO changes to the K-6 curriculum regarding health and sex-ed curriculum. There hasn't been any discussion of amending the K-6 curriculum at this time, nor have they expressed any near-future intentions of doing so.

4) Allegation: The district is indoctrinating students with an anti-God health and sex ed curriculum leading to mass opt-outs to private schools.

Truth: Private school enrollment has declined over the past few years, AND, the district has NOT amended, approved, piloted or implemented ANY new curriculum regarding 7-12 health and sex ed curriculum. The Aug. 20 meeting was the FIRST of many meetings to discuss amendments to the curriculum that would bring the district in compliance with the Healthy Youth Act, which became law in 2016.

5) Allegation: The CVUSD's declining enrollment is due to its sex ed curriculum.

Truth: A few years ago, the CVUSD hired a company to provide a detailed demographics report on the district, which covered its projections regarding enrollment and factors believed to contribute to the declining enrollment-related issues. During that presentation, they did not forecast that years into the future, a single discussion on whether to approve amendments to the district's sex and health curriculum to bring the district into compliance with state law, would be a factor. Because it's not. Our district has faced declining enrollment for years — none of it curriculum related.

6) Allegation: The district is secretly updating its curriculum without anyone knowing and all of this is already happening in our district.

Truth: The final Health Education Framework has not even been published yet and won't be until 2020. At that time, new text books will be reviewed, and piloted first. Only after that process would the district even then purchase the new books, if approved via that process. Per board president Dr. Connolly, the district goes through this for each subject area on a rotating basis. The last Health Education Framework was 2008.

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How can we have productive conversations when those in opposition aren't even being given the right, factual information to help them understand the curriculum and their rights? This is a problem.

Aware of the misinformation being spread online, the CVUSD put together a FAQ page on its website for parents. You can access that page HERE.

I'm attaching a quick fact sheet on the CHYA, but you can also read the full text of the bill HERE.
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You can also review the framework via the CDE website, HERE (remembering that the framework is a guidance tool for educators and our district has not amended any of its current related curriculum at this time.)