The Texas State Board of Education this week will vote on changes to health education standards, including revisions to sex education.
The board meets Tuesday morning to hear from about 240 speakers signed up to give public testimony on the issue. In previous hearings held earlier this year on the issue, a majority of speakers lobbied the state board for comprehensive sex education and many urged members to include information about sexual orientation and gender identity in the state’s curriculum, something the majority of the state board did not seem willing to do.
The state has not updated its health standards, including what Texas students are taught about sex, in more than two decades. Texas law requires sex education teaching in public schools promotes abstinence as the preferred behavior for unmarried students. Most of those lessons are taught in the middle and high school levels.
The proposed revisions remain focused on abstinence, but changes include more information on contraception and sexually transmitted infection prevention.
A health standards work group recommended revisions that include fifth graders learning about fertilization and sixth graders being taught about sexual intercourse. Seventh graders could learn about the levels of effectiveness of contraception, which isn’t taught until high school under existing standards.
More than 80% of Texas school districts teach abstinence-only material or don’t teach sex education at all. Districts are able to teach an “abstinence-plus” curriculum, which encourages abstinence but also teaches other methods to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. The Austin school district in 2019 adopted such a curriculum, which includes lessons on sexual orientation, gender identity and consent.
After public hearings in June and September, the school board is expected to take a final vote on the issue Friday.
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