The Battle Ground Public Schools Board of Directors on Monday will consider updates to its health textbook and curriculum materials, updating a 13-year-old textbook with new, scientifically accurate material.
“We are updating a textbook that is no longer correct,” said Rita Sanders, the district ‘s spokeswoman.
The school board will consider “Comprehensive Health,” a general health textbook, as well as “High School FLASH,” or “Family Life and Sexual Health,” for its high school health classes. FLASH is a sexual health education curriculum designed by King County Public Health, designed to federal sexual education standards.
But the FLASH curriculum is drawing public ire from some conservatives. In letters to the editor to The Reflector, Battle Ground’s weekly newspaper, as well as in conservative-leaning Facebook groups, critics have suggested the curriculum may not be appropriate for children.
The Sequim School District, a rural district on the Olympic Peninsula, suspended implementation of the curriculum in March after “parents and staff expressed complaints to the district,” according to the Sequim Gazette.
King County Public Health’s website touts the curriculum as respectful to all races, sexual orientations and genders, and encourages students’ families to participate in lessons.
“Sexuality education is a lifelong process of acquiring information and forming attitudes, beliefs, and values about identity, relationships and intimacy,” the website reads. “It encompasses sexual development, reproductive health, interpersonal relationships, affection, intimacy, body image and gender roles.”
According to Battle Ground Public Schools, adopting the material will bring the north Clark County district into alignment with state health standards and laws.
About a decade ago, the state’s Health Youth Act went into effect, requiring that schools offer medically and scientifically accurate instruction if offering sexual health education. Schools must include information about abstaining from sex, as well as other forms of birth control and protection from sexually transmitted diseases. Schools must also give parents a month’s notice before teaching sexual health education and allow them to review the materials. Parents can excuse their children from those lessons.
Sanders called the sex health portion of the curriculum a small section of a larger class.
“We are updating a textbook that has gotten out of date, and it happens to be for high school health,” Sanders said.
The Battle Ground school board meets at 6 p.m. Monday at the Lewisville Campus at 406 N.W. Fifth Ave., in Battle Ground.
