Washington voters approved comprehensive sex ed. Now what?
Nearly 58% of voters gave their stamp of approval to Referendum 90 earlier this month, signing off on a bill that requires public schools to provide comprehensive sexual health education by the 2022-23 school year.
The bill on the topic was introduced in January 2019 and signed into law in March 2020, but was the subject of much heated debate among legislators and their constituents. Referendum 90 landed on ballots after a campaign to repeal the law garnered more than twice the number of verified signatures it needed, according to previous reporting.
Now that voters have approved the referendum, Washington state is joining many other states that mandate sex education and HIV education in schools. A tally from the Guttmacher Institute counts Washington among 28, plus Washington, D.C., that fit that description.
What happens next? McClatchy dug into the law and brought a list of questions, including a few from readers, to state Superintendent Chris Reykdal in a video interview.
What does this really change?
Currently, state law requires yearly HIV/AIDS prevention education starting in fifth grade. Another state law directs teachers to stress methods to prevent exposure to and transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.
Districts can choose to provide sexual health education beyond what’s mandated. If they do, they have to follow requirements in the Healthy Youth Act — that’s the law amended by the new changes.
The Healthy Youth Act, in part, already requires schools offering sexual health education to make sure it’s medically and scientifically accurate. It also has to be age-appropriate and include information about abstinence and other ways of preventing unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
That’s all still required in the amended law, but for all schools.
The requirements will phase in, with public schools ultimately required to provide comprehensive sexual health education at least once to students sometime between kindergarten and third grade, once in grades 4-5, twice in grades 6-8 and twice in grades 9-12.
For students in kindergarten through third grade, the law only requires instruction in social-emotional learning, which helps students build awareness and skills in managing emotions, setting goals, establishing relationships, and making responsible decisions, according to the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI); no sexuality content or curriculum will be required.
In grades 4 and higher, it requires education with information about several topic areas, including a person’s physiological, psychological, and sociological development; the development of meaningful relationships and avoidance of exploitative relationships; and information on abstinence and other ways to prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
Under the law, schools’ curriculum, instruction, and materials have to include information about affirmative consent and bystander training — information on the concepts is specifically named as a requirement for grades 4-12.
“Affirmative consent” is defined in the law as “a conscious and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity as a requirement before sexual activity.” Bystander training is defined in an OSPI bulletin as training where individuals are “taught to spot the signs of sexual violence and safely intervene if possible.”
Language in the law is amended so a requirement that instruction be “appropriate” regardless of specific, named demographics such as gender and race, will instead require it to be “inclusive of all students,” regardless of protected class status. And, sex ed will now have to be consistent with not just guidelines developed by the state Department of Health and OSPI in 2005, but also with state Health Education K-12 Learning Standards.
The ability for parents and guardians to have their child excused from any planned instruction remains in the law.
What happens next?
Starting Dec. 3, schools that have chosen already to provide sexual health education in grades 4-12 have to ensure students are getting instruction on affirmative consent and bystander training.
For other schools, this school year is basically a planning year, Superintendent Reykdal said.
Starting in the 2021-22 school year, schools have to provide comprehensive sex ed at least twice in grades 6-8 and at least twice in grades 9-12.
Starting in the 2022-23 school year, schools have to provide comprehensive sex ed no later than grade 5 and social-emotional learning for students in kindergarten through grade 3.
Is there a state-mandated curriculum?
No. Districts can choose from a list that’s reviewed by the Department of Health and OSPI, Reykdal said, or choose or create their own that fits the requirements.
A 2019 report to the legislature from OSPI found that 266 out of 285 responding school districts, or 93%, reported providing sexual health education in at least one grade band. That includes HIV/AIDS prevention education that’s already mandated by law, according to OSPI spokesperson Katy Payne.
Almost 65% of districts reported providing sexual health education in grades kindergarten through 5, a little over 86% in grades 6-8, and a little over 75% in grades 9-12. A little over 42% of districts reported using curricula they developed and almost 18% reported using curricula other than reviewed curricula that have been determined to meet state law.
OSPI won’t proactively review and approve curricula, Reykdal said, but will give technical support to districts by answering questions and making sure they understand what’s required. Districts are required to adopt curriculum publicly, he said.
“If districts really do this well, and I’m really confident they will, on the front end of all of this, they have to adopt their curriculum choice publicly,” Reykdal said. “So, there’s going to be a lot of interested parents on the front end of this who really want to see this, and if the community gets to a really good place on this, I don’t think you’ll see a lot of opt-outs ...”
The law does require districts to report to OSPI yearly what curricula they’re using to provide comprehensive sex ed.
“We will be developing a new data collection tool for districts to tell us what curriculum they are using and what they are doing to meet sexual health education requirements,” Payne wrote in an email.
What does this mean for my school district?
That will vary by district. The law requires comprehensive sex ed be provided six times over 13 years, Reykdal said, and what a “lesson plan” might look like is not defined in the statute.
Legally, a district could comply with a one-hour lesson on a single day, six times. But, he said, the bill encourages a comprehensive program. He explained that as meaning a continuous body of work — it builds, the same way you don’t start with “Calculus in kindergarten.”
In this case, it may mean teaching kindergartners to keep their hands to themselves, and by senior year talking about disease prevention, pregnancy prevention, and avoiding sexual assault.
A more expansive example might look like a week-long program that dives deeply into concepts and is integrated into health classes offered in seventh grade, and again to ninth and 10th graders, according to Reykdal.
What if a district defies the new law?
“This is the grayest area in all of education, across the country,” Reykdal said.
Most state education agencies, such as OSPI, have “guidance authority,” he said, and “recommendation authority.” The bill allows OSPI to review curriculum districts may use, but there isn’t a noncompliance description.
Typically, if OSPI finds out a district isn’t doing what the state has asked — say, not offering the proper number of math credits for high schoolers — OSPI would tell them they need to comply with the law and show OSPI a corrective action plan.
That’s usually as far as it gets, Reykdal said. If it really came down to it, though, OSPI would have the ability to withhold state funding from districts “if they insist on not being compliant.” He emphasized that would be “very atypical.”
“There are so many requirements of districts, and they comply,” Reykdal said.
What does the ‘opt-out’ provision look like?
School districts are required to notify families at the beginning of the year in any grade level where this is offered, Reykdal said. An example letter is available on the OSPI website.
Current rules also require school districts to, at least a month before teaching a program on sexual health education, provide notice to parents. Those rules haven’t been updated since the voter-approved Senate bill was passed, according to OSPI spokesperson Katy Payne, so updates still might be made.
“However, our program staff do not anticipate changing the 30-day notification requirement,” Payne wrote in an email. As with all other changes made in a rule, there will be an opportunity for public comment, she wrote.
Parents and guardians can file written requests with school boards, principals, or their designees, according to the law, and they’re required to grant that request. Since the law doesn’t require a ton of content time, Reykdal said it wouldn’t be a major change to a student’s schedule.
Parents and guardians also can review curriculum by filing a written request under the law.
This story was originally published December 1, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
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