The Duval County School Board on Tuesday approved changes to the district’s sex education curriculum and its rules on employee conduct, including limiting one-to-one communication with students. The board also removed diversity objectives from its contractor policy, in accordance with a disputed federal executive order.
Sex ed remains opt-out
Currently, all students in grades 6-12 receive sex ed instruction, and parents may opt kids out. Months ago, the school board considered changing the policy to require parents to opt their children into sex ed. The final version adopted Tuesday kept the lessons as opt-out and added a compromise: Schools will be able to split middle-school students by gender for sex ed lessons — something the previous policy did not expressly prohibit.
“We asked for a few things. One was, ‘OK, we could be OK with having only an opt-out if communication was very clear in a multitude of ways,” District 7 rep Melody Bolduc said. “And…if it was separated by genders, where girls could ask questions in the presence of girls, boys asking questions in the presence of boys, that they would feel more comfortable asking the questions that they have.”
Darryl Willie was the sole no vote against the change…