FCPS School Board Work Session FLECAC Annual Report 5/14/18

001all right thank you very much and we will now go on to the our next work session which is on which is on the Family Life Education Advisory Committee annual report and we are joined today by dr. Presidio and Liz Payne to make a presentation I would ask that board members wait for the end of the presentation to to ask questions with mr. net Koufax and I will be watching to see who has questions or comments during the presentation dr. presidio and miss Payne are going to try to summarize where we are as quickly as possible and then we'll go to questions and comments so dr. Presidio you leading off for miss Payne are you go ahead and lead off all right go right ahead all right well good morning everyone it's almost noon so

002it's not quite afternoon yet so we still got a few minutes here we are running a little bit late so I recognize that and I will as MS Evans said try to provide a high high enough level overview that will preserve time in this work session for discussions with board members so to start out with I just wanted to remind folks of the timeline in the process that you see represented on this slide for our family life education curriculum Advisory Committee work the committee's report was presented to the board as a new business item last Thursday night on May 10th we're obviously having our work session today and then there's an extensive period for community review where community members can look at all of the committee's recommendations and provide feedback that they would like to

003have shared with the board and then we're scheduled for board action on June 14th so today what we're gonna try to do in terms of the objectives for this work session one is to describe a little bit about the FLE program and Fairfax we're certainly going to review the purpose in the composition of fleek Act but most of the time is going to be spent sharing the recommendations from fleet CAC this year and then having an opportunity for questions and discussion among board members so to start out with I just wanted to remind folks particularly those folks in the in the community that FCPS actually has a locally developed FLE program that is aligned with the state department of education program and most of the jurisdictions that we're familiar with in the state of Virginia

004actually developed their own programs in alignment and in accordance with the state program as well our program of course is a k-12 program and it includes both human growth and development and emotional and social health topics so when you think about you know why we choose to develop a local program there's a couple reasons as as I said most jurisdictions make that determination in the state and the first reason is that we want to make sure that we're able to actually develop the kinds of program materials that are responsive to our local community so for example you might remember in recent years that we were a little bit ahead of the state in terms of talking about human sex trafficking because that was an issue that we were really dealing with in Northern Virginia the

005legislature acted on that they've included that in their program but another problem that we have with the state program is that they they provide a lot of broad standards but they don't really provide specifics they really leave that up to the local jurisdictions to figure out how you actually instruct on a particular topic so for those reasons like most divisions in the state we develop our own program and when you develop your own program you do need to have a committee that's involved in supporting the school system with that work and that is FLE CAC the family life education curriculum Advisory Committee in FCPS so the membership on FLE CAC that's required by the state in terms of the community involvement team is listed here on this slide and this is the exact language from

006the board of education at the top of the slide so the Board of Ed provides that if you develop your own local program you need to have a community involvement team or a or a school health advisory board those two terms are really used synonymously and those boards should include individuals such as the members that are stood here so a person from central office principals from the various levels teachers parents possibly a board member members of the clergy and the medical profession and other community members so the Board of Education doesn't require a particular common composition of the committee but they make recommendations in terms of the types of individuals that should serve on your committee so in the middle of that slide you can see actually Fairfax in terms of our fleet CAC membership

007we have 33 voting members 12 of those members are school board appointees we have two public health nurses from the Health Department we have representation from the faith-based community we have representation from the PTA associations we have students and we have principals at each of the levels and we have nine teachers across the various levels we also have six non-voting members on our committee and the committee follows Robert's Rules of Order and the reason that I mentioned that is I think it's important to note that we actually amended Robert's Rules of Order for the purpose of FLE CAC this year in March because the committee was really doing such a deep dive and looking at the FCPS program in great detail that we wanted to make sure that there was enough opportunity for community members

008to speak to some of their issues and questions and concerns so the committee voted by consensus to require that at least four individuals would speak to a particular motion before it was voted on so that was amended in March in terms of the scope of the work of the committee last year the school board requested that the committee do an in-depth comparison of FCPS is local program to the state program so that request was made last year and this year the committee really focused their work on a comprehensive review of our program we prepared at the central office staff we prepared some resources to help the committee in their work the first resource was a crosswalk that compares all of the lesson objective between the video a program in the FCPS program we actually prepared

009that document last year and posted that and made that publicly available last year but it's posted to board Docs again this year as opposed to as a supplement to today's work session it's a 78 page document I'm so it's very comprehensive in nature also the committee had access to all of the FLE program materials when they were doing this work this year but of course in Fairfax we make access available to all of our parents in terms of the FLE programs all of that information is has been posted on our website currently on blackboard so I would point out that that was a significant charge for the committee this year to do that in-depth comparison the committee only developed 21 recommendations for changes so when you think about a 78 page crosswalk looking at all

010the lesson materials and the committee only recommended seven changes to the program for this year you can see that there were no recommended changes to the k7 lesson objectives this year there was a change to the grade for media there were changes to grades 8 through 12 lesson objectives and then there was a recommendation to add opioid and heroin prevention instruction in grades 11 and 12 so in the subsequent slides you've got the detailed information of what those recommended changes were some of the slides I'm going to go through quickly some of them I'm gonna pause and go through in a little bit more detail so the first recommended change was at grade 4 and the recommendation of the committee is to use what the video that we use currently in grade 3 when we

011instruct on the lesson objective 4.3 where students recognize ways to deal with threatening and uncomfortable situations last year in the dissenting opinion of Lee CAC the dissenting opinion actually requested that we use this video at grade 4 we did not adopt that last year because the majority of the committee did not vote in favor of that this year however the majority of the committee did vote in favor and the committee is recommending that we use the current grade 3 video in grade 3 and also at grade 4 you do see here in terms of vote we've Illustrated the vote on each of these slides for the committee there were four no votes and those no votes really are characterized by those members feeling that it wasn't necessary to show the video in grades three and

012four that once was enough but the majority of the committee would like to show it in grades three and four on grade eight lesson objective eight point four which deals with students demonstrating strategies for resolving conflicts that arise in families and peer groups the recommendation of the committee is to actually move this unit of instruction out of FLE and into the general health program so the committee voted 20 to three to do that but the three individuals devoted against that would like to keep this lesson content contained in FLE so that parents could continue to have the option to opt their children out of this particular lesson objective now on the next recommended change it's with respect to eight point five lesson objective eight point five a grade eight and that objective is that students

013are going to identify the development of individual identity occurs over a lifetime and includes the component of sexual orientation and gender identity and the recommendation it the the text in the descriptive statement any language that has a strike through the committee recommended that that language be deleted in any language that is underlined the committee is recommending that that language be inserted so essentially what the committee is recommending here is to replace the term with respect to this particular lesson objective only to replace the term biological sex with sex assigned at birth and you can see that the vote was 18 to 4 and I want to talk a little bit more about what this actually means so I just think there's a few things to kind of point out regarding this recommendation the first which

014is very important is that the term sex assigned at birth is currently used in FCPS left Lesson definitions in grades 7 through and it's only used for lessons related to the topic of gender identity so to say that another way we currently use the terminology sex assigned at birth to define the concept of biological sex in the context of lessons on gender identity only so for example in our current FLE program at grade 8 the definition for biological sex is as follows a person's biological sex is the sex that they are assigned at birth it is associated primarily with physical attributes their reproductive Anatomy and other anatomical physiological structures chromosomes and hormones we have similar definitions at grades 9 and 10 so the committee is not recommending any change to this definition rather the recommendation

015for the change here is only with respect to the terminology in the lesson objective at this particular grade level oh I skipped one part that is also important to point out is that the sex assigned at birth terminology is aligned with terminology used by the American Academy of Pediatrics the American Psychological Association and the American College of Physicians so it is very much in alignment with mainstream medical professional associations it's also important to point out that we are not the only local jurisdiction that uses the terminology sex assigned at birth it is used in Alexandria and it is also used in Montgomery County Public Schools so I just wanted to make sure that everyone was aware of that as well the next several recommendations you can see the committee consensus was unanimous so I'm just

016gonna kind of breeze through those pretty quickly which letter we on there those twelve let me actually go back one so this one actually I skipped over them I apologize for that the committee vote was full consensus it's important to point out the lesson objective here is dealing with the consequences of teen sexual activity in exploring the benefits of the staining from sexual activity until marriage grade 9 lesson objective 9.1 is that students will identify the family as a basic unit of society and his or her responsibility is a member of the family so there's full committee consensus on that the next lesson objective is 9.3 students will identify effects prevention strategies and appropriate resources for help reporting sexual abuse so again there was full consensus on the new language and the descriptive statement of

017that lesson objective as well now the next lesson objective nine point four is that students will identify factors that contribute to healthy relationships and Families friendship and dating there was not full committee consensus here there were two opposing votes on adding some of the language that was recommended by the full committee and really those two individuals were opposed to striking language on respect for self you can see that that is struck through in this particular proposed lesson objective lesson objective nine point three is that students will identify sexual abstinence is the appropriate choice for adolescents and identify appropriate methods for expressing feelings and affection and you could see that the vote here was 15 to four about adding the term abstinence in the descriptive statement of the lesson objective the term is in the lesson

018objective itself already so the four individuals felt that abstinence was already explicit in the current language and that it did not need to be mentioned in the descriptive statement however you can see the full committee voted in favor of adding that language into the descriptive statement continuing at ninth grade nine point four and human growth and development students will examine methods of contraception and here you can see that the vote again was not unanimous it was twenty two to two and two of the members voted against this new language and really I think their concerns could be characterized as feeling that the additional language of abstinence is the most effective method for preventing sti's was not appropriate they preferred the original language that abstinence is the only 100% effective method for preventing STI s but

01922 of the committee members you can see felt that the language change was necessary because it is possible to contract STI s in other ways than through sexual activity you can think of blood transfusions in other ways breast milk that sti's can actually be contracted so that is the difference in terms of that vote the next lesson objective nine point five students will review information about bacterial viral and parasitic sexually transmitted infections to include prevention transmission diagnosis and treatment so this is the first time that you see the introduction of the language pre exposure prophylaxis as HIV prevention and you can see that the vote to prep was 22 to 2 and it's important to note a couple things here as well so first prep is are actually already mentioned in the FCPS curriculum in

020grade 10 if we expand the information around the inclusion of prep in 2 FLE at grade 9 the instruction that students would be provided with essentially is that they would receive information that prep would be for people who engage in behaviors that put them at high risk for HIV infection an instruction would also include that students would need to talk with parents physicians health care providers to determine whether or not that medication might be appropriate for them we make no medical suggestions or inferences but the reason that we're proposing as a committee to include prep in our fle program really stems from the CDC the Center for Disease Control's advocacy that it has a highly effective rate as preventing students that are at high exposure or preventing individuals that might be at high risk and

021high exposure for HIV and again there are other school divisions in our local area that do include prep in their curriculum as well so again Alexandria in Montgomery County do include instruction on prep continuing in grade 9 the lesson objective that students will recognize the development of sexuality is a lifelong aspect of personality you can see that the vote here was 19 - for 19 of the members felt that the term clergy that you can see is struck from the descriptive statement 19 the members felt that the term clergy wasn't necessary because it was included in trusted adult - what is meant by a trusted adult but for members felt very strongly that we should retain the term clergy in this lesson description and I do want to point out for the community in the

022school board that the term clergy has used numerous times in the FLE curriculum so if we were to strike the term clergy with respect to this particular lesson objective it would still be in the FLE curriculum so I just I want to point out that this particular recommendation to remove the term clergy is only with respect to lesson objective nine point six Sloan could you just clarify because it could end up being a board question it also was struck with or counselor and can you just speak to a little bit of the discussion with counselors the same issue as clergy in terms of the 19 members devoted for removing those terms they felt that it wasn't necessary to enumerate all the examples of trusted adults that those concepts and terms would be implicit in the

023concept of trusted adult grade 10 we moved to grade 10 now ten point five students will examine the most common bacterial viral and parasitic sexually transmitted infections and again this is the exact same issue that we talked about at grade nine with the introduction of prep so I'm not going to go into that in more detail we've already discussed that and the same issue occurs in grades 11 and grade 12 in terms of a split committee vote also at grade 10 lesson objective 10 point 6 is that students will recognize the development of sexuality as an aspect of one's total personality you can see that the vote was split here in 19 to 4 and primarily the new language at the bottom is the students with questions or concerns about their sexual orientation or gender

024identity will be advised to talk with a parent or a trusted adult and that was really the focus of disagreement at the committee here because in general I think it's important to point out that in FCPS we always advise our students no matter what the situation is when they're dealing when we're dealing with sensitive topics and sensitive issues to speak first with their parents or other trusted adults but the four members that opposed this felt that including this additional language with that new sentence might actually raise issues for students with questions around sexual orientation or gender identity that would have conveyed to them a value judgment that if they had questions now they need to go and talk to somebody about it so really the the four members here did not feel it was necessary

025to instruct students to go and speak with the trusted adult and they did not want to press any value judgments towards students moving on to grade 10 again here this particular lesson objective there was strong consensus on the part of the committee for adding at the establishment of personal boundaries and being respectful of personal boundaries in this particular lesson objective we move to grade 11 and again you see a vote of 22 to 2 on a lesson objective that really has to do with the issue of prep again at the 11th grade so we've seen it at the ninth and tenth grade now at the eleventh grade and we'll see it once more at the twelfth grade the next lesson objective has to do with the same issue that we already talked about with abstinence

026and the language should it be a hundred percent or should it be the most effective method which form of language should we use as we discussed previously so that's the reason for the committee vote split here eleven point three the lesson objective that students will examine healthy and unhealthy relationships dating violence and strategies for Risk Reduction prevention and available support services so there was a split vote here and really the split vote was due to the lack of consensus around some of the language around personal boundaries so it was really more of a language issue than a concept issue here we moved to grade 12 and we see again the committee split 22 to two regarding the inclusion of concepts of prep and our curriculum continuing at grade 12 we see another example of a

027committee split vote of 22 to 2 on the correct language to use around the concept of abstinence 100% effective or most effective method for preventing STI s and then the very last recommendation of the full committee was to include instruction in grades 11 and 12 on the dangers around opioid and heroin use and prevention the committee felt in favor of including that instruction 22 to to full consensus but felt like it should occur somewhere other than FLE it should occur somewhere where every student in the system receives that instruction so perhaps in social studies or someplace else in the curriculum so finally I wanted to present a summary overview of the dissenting opinion that was authored by four members of the committee you have that in full it's posted on board Docs I'm sorry three

028members of the community committee my apologies you have that in full its contained as part of the fleet CAC annual report that's posted on board Docs so just to briefly summarize the recommendations the dissenting members of the committee felt like with respect to the committee process and composition there should be more open discussion on each question for a reasonable period of time as I mentioned in March the committee did adopt an amendment to Robert's Rules of Order to provide more opportunity for discussion on sensitive issues and topics that the committee is dealing with and then they also are recommending to increase the proportion of parents who have children and FCPS on the committee additionally the dissenting opinion recommends including information about the potential risks and side effects of medical treatment relating to transgender transitioning medical

029interventions for sex reassignment involving hormonal therapy or surgical treatments in grades 7 through 10 and I do want to point out here that FCPS lessons do not currently mention hormonal therapy or surgical treatments and we do not have any intention of adding those concepts into our program at this time at all and then the second bullet point is the commit the dissenting members of the committee were recommending to continue to use the term biological sex rather than sex assigned at birth in that eighth grade lesson objective that we looked at also they're recommending that we communicate the risks and side effects of contraceptives in grades nine eleven and twelve recommending to retain the grade eight emotional and social health objective and not remove it to the health curriculum as I discussed previously and recommending teaching

030abstinence is the only 100% effective method of preventing STI s and finally continuing to list clergy among the persons that students are encouraged to consult with and they oppose adding instruction on the use of prep to the curriculum in grades 9 through 12 so I actually think I stuck to the time limit that I discuss with the meeting managers I hope that wasn't too fast but hopefully we'll have plenty of time for discussion now all right I only have one board member so far that's mr. moon but all right I see mrs. Straus mr. moon thank you I have a couple of questions to ask first and about one advocacy and one of the things I know some tips first of all dr. Presidio by the way thanks for the presentation and then when I

031see the number committee members voting or present and I'm actually voting when the numbers don't add up the two I assume that numbers not included as voting in favor or no abstentions so I'm gonna let dr. Payne answer that particular question and probably several others I just want to mention again the dr. Payne is the liaison to the committee shoes are a coordinator of our health program PE program in Fairfax County and she does a tremendous job supporting the work of the committee so I'm gonna let her address certainly the procedural kinds of questions yes sir so that is correct so we do not have a roll call vote as part of our committee guidelines therefore we just have yeses and noes and I give the total members and that would be the abstentions if

032you don't matter okay thank you the second question has to do with lesson objective 8.4 I do understand about opt in versus opt out whether those dissenting committee members said anything about the lesson of lesson objective is self to be objectionable I don't think that it was objectionable but when you look at that again and we're on slide 8 I'll let Liz kind of flip us back to slide 8 there so that everybody can take a look at the language the lesson objective itself is that students are going to demonstrate strategies for resolving conflicts that arise in families and peer groups and I think the dissenting votes here felt like discussion around resolving conflicts and families should be something that families discuss as a family and they might want to opt their children out of

033that instruction and that was why it should be retained in FLE instead of moving to general health okay thank you the last one is my advocacy on nine point six removing of chlorogene counselor from less than I was active so I descriptive a statement as I understand why the majority wanting to remove those languages I would at the same time let me ask you either doctor pain without capacity will there be any harm done by keeping those languages no III don't believe so like I said we already have the term clergy in many other places in our curriculum so there would really not be a problem with retaining it here and I just wanted to again convey the committee's rationale for voting in favor of removing it was to not enumerate all the specific individuals

034but again I think we could very easily retain the term clergy in this lesson objective what about what about I mean I would see a teacher is that a particular reason or just teacher he's a part of the trustee alert if if we were going to make any changes to the committee's recommendations I would recommend that we stick with just retaining the term clergy which is something that previous committees had voted in favor of instead of trying to add additional language that the committee wouldn't have had time to vet what about keeping constant on child we certainly could do that as well become my advocacy is that maybe we could do it this way and that a third line on page seven of the report that what that's up there 9.6 I'm gonna just use

035my report on the pages 7 over the report they serve 9.6 that's on page 7 of this not the slide then right after talk with the parent I would advocate that we put or order trust in others such as members of clergy and counselors so he will be students with questions were concerned about your sexual orientation or gender identity will be advised to talk with a parent or older trusted parent trustee alerts such as members of crunch and counselors yes so I definitely have that change I think probably the board staff has that language change as well if that were something that the board wanted to do we certainly could make that change thank you so mr. moon I believe the process for that would be to offer an amendment on June 14th for a

036vote when it comes up for a vote so I just wanted to see want to see what ideal would be something so you're asking your colleagues for the college for that all right yeah and are you finished mr. mee I'm done for now thank you so much mr. Ross first of all Thank You mr. moon for suggesting that amendment I would support that and I know that throughout our FLE program discussion of sensitive topics we always urge our students to consult with their parents and trusted adults that that's really where they need to go for their questions and help with that so thank you mr. moon for bringing that forward and thank you dr. Presidio for providing the entire report in the dissenting report so that we get a sense of the the discussion that

037really helps to give us the background I do I do support all the other recommendations in in the main report but again I I really appreciate being able to hear all of it so thank you thank you Miss Schultz so I've got a number of questions I just want to ask a fundamental question and if you don't mind I'm going to first with all due respect to to you folks dr. Barron what do you think the objective of family life education is I think the objective of family life education is to provide our students with the knowledge and supports for them as they go through school to deal with to deal with topics that many may have in their conversations and homes but they may not necessarily have and I think the school has to

038be a trusted partner with families and I believe family life education has had a long history in Fairfax County of being a place where information can be shared that can be helpful for students and helping them as they move through the continuum of growing up and it's it's a place for the social-emotional supports that we've been talking about as a board and our leadership team over the last few years okay I appreciate that that's a good off the cuff I wanted to just have kind of like what your baseline was so in that regard I guess one I'm a little bit concerned about the question that the discussions they may not be having at home but let's just put that aside I I guess my fundamental question then is maybe to dr. Presidio do you

039feel at any point with some of the language that's provided here or maybe even some of the language that's been embedded previous to this that we've crossed sort of the Rubicon of giving information that is necessary for the development of students for the parents who opt in in teaching about sexual reproduction and what they need to know about their bodies to actually you know going well beyond that you know teaching how to have sex or the way to think about sex as opposed to learning about their bodies and reproductive cycles and you know things like sex traffic and everything else do you feel like we've pushed beyond that in the development of our own system based curriculum that's not the states well I would say a couple things so that at first I think it's

040important and I appreciate your original question to dr. Brandt as well it's important to recognize that video he provides guidance around the standards that we need to talk about and there's objectives related to each of those right so one of them is around human sexuality and I think the question in terms of like what are the values that we want to really be you know focused on in our curriculum is more of a question for the community than it is for me that's the role I think of the the fleek at committee it's the role of board members to determine the appropriateness of the inclusion of topics in the curriculum the report that we're providing to the board is the committee's report as I mentioned there are 33 voting members central office staff are not

041voting members on on the committee so I think that is really the question that the board always has to try to answer are we reflecting our community's needs well in our program okay so I'm really glad you brought that up because you said you know what the values are that we're a message comes from the community and that that's the point of the committee and I appreciate mr. moon highlighting that at the bottom of these to my knowledge I didn't see any votes ever total 233 and so that I think becomes the essence of the issue is you dr. brand on an off-the-cuff question your answer included a trusted partner with families you dr. presidio included and your off-the-cuff answer that the message is the message of what we what we message in terms of

042values is for the community to speak so the question becomes truly how representative of the community is is FLE CAC and when you point and if you could go to the slide that you list a couple of organizations that you say include sex assigned at Birth in particular I want to highlight those because like what I've just described is one of my concerns these organizations in potentially in outward statements although internal documents say stay otherwise the the three the APA the those decisions about that that definition are made by a small committee they're not made by the you know sixty six thousand doctors or what come ever whereas the American College of pediatrics they're there doctors do vote and so yes that's only twenty thousand but they do vote on what that is and I'm

043wondering when you take a term like that what does our biology curriculum teach if because you said this is limited only to the FLE curriculum then how are you aligning what is taught here - if they leave FLE and then go into their their biology portion of their curriculum where how is and not to use upon but how do you transition from what's said in and the curriculum under this guys versus what's taught as a part of biology yeah I think that's a good question again I mean I I do want to reread the definition that we use in the FLE program because I think it's very important to understand that when we are talking about the terminology sex assigned at Birth we're using that in conjunction with our definition of biological sex so again

044at grade 8 because that's where this recommended change would be in the FLE program in grade 8 in our definitions for biological sex which are in the curriculum and nothing in these recommendations on the part of the committee this year would remove our definition of grade 8 biological sex is that a person's biological sex is the sex that they're assigned at birth and associated primarily with the physical attributes their reproductive anatomy and other anatomical physiological structures chromosomes and hormone zones so those are the things that we discuss in biology to to your question so we had a we had and unfortunately my children were and in that time period we had a Virginia history book for years that was riddled with errors we didn't keep teaching it because it was already in the curriculum so

045you know just because it occurs someplace else doesn't mean we transfer the knowledge into FLE and my problem is is that what do you teach children about the sex of a fetus that's internal still to the mother do you teach them that that you can't assign a sex before birth so this is where you start to it starts to unravel really for me is what is it that is necessary to make this change that makes the curriculum better or more accurate and I haven't been able to find anything that says that there's any medical community consensus that this is actually medical fact it in fact it's not because we know that people find out the sex of their children before they're born so sex assigned at birth you know denies the fact that we're determining

046sex prior to birth so the Medical accuracy we're when we're getting down to what we're teaching children as fact because this is supposed to be an education what is it that is factually accurate is where where I struggle in particular with us I agree with the change that mr. moon has highlighted in particular I am worried that we have educators and I brought this up to your predecessor dr. brand who basically I think should be granted you know conscientious objector status and I know we don't force anybody to teach this but there are people who have been teaching family life education for decades in in FCPS who have privately come forward and said they can't teach it anymore if we do this because it's no longer not only is not medically accurate it it now

047you're now they'll be violating their their their conscience either from from a cultural background from a religious background from a moral background you know any number of concerns have come up there so then do we have people who are not necessarily the committed FLE educators who've been teaching it for again many many years now who have a passion for imparting medically accurate information to children now no longer willing to teach then who does teach the people who are less passionate about it you know now we're sort of stiff-arming people into the role so I'm concerned about that just like we were saying earlier about what was what is a what is our job versus what is a medical doctors job versus what is a private clergy members job with regard to the discussion around prep

048there are no CDC and no FDA clinical guidelines or protocols for for children under the age of 18 and actually it only says adult and there's some documents to say they're even concerned because they haven't defined what an adult is and so if CDC and FDA don't have any clinical guidelines or any protocol for the delivery of a that there's a highly controversial drug within you know certain communities why would we then embed that type of information and if anybody says just well because another school district does that's possible I mean you know because somebody else does it we should do it too I mean that's the best last place of resort what is the medical information and then you get down into the issue with this and other issues around what are the risks

049I mean if we're if we if the objective with Emily is to act in partnership with parents as a trusted partner of parents and to work with the community to reflect the values that the community wants us to impart and it's only a few people that are deciding this and I don't really see any staff opposition to anything so it's clearly driven by the committee then what we're saying is is that we don't have to impart things like what are the risks what are the risks with an abortion what are the risks with medical or pharmaceutical interventions like prep if if we're not going to delve down into risks I mean that's that's actually really medically accurate information that allows people to weigh the consequences of should I take this should I not take this

050should I pursue this show to not pursue this let me fully understand I mean any commercial from Big Pharma that you hear I mean it's somewhat I mean they make SNL skits out of you know you know side effects could include if we won't include that then how are we being medically accurate so I think there are a lot of concerns here about the reasonableness of where we've gone with some of this information it's not that we don't provide it for who may need it I do think that we have to be a resource in the event that there are some who need it but enforcing it on everyone and and professing that well some families can opt out well we have we have a mission creep is really what the answer is and then

051what is said once we leave the classroom you know you don't what what's said in FLE doesn't stay only you know it's not the Vegas of our curriculum so I do think that there are some pretty significant concerns that you should look at based on your first initial guidance to us that this is supposed to be in trusted partnership and that it is supposed to be reflective of what the community messages I don't think that we have a meeting of the minds that we really have done the public engagement this the state the state guidelines and you you underlined should which I found curious the the state Department of Education is saying we should do this we should have parents we should do broad community engagement not having a presentation on Thursday and I understand

052that's historically been the the approach is that it's addressed in a work session like this the public doesn't see a work session like this like they do a regular board meeting a online survey at the end of the school year with the graduations you know pressing down on us Sol czar happening right now AP and IB exams this a very stressful time of the school year and to say that this is a reasonable expectation of what the state is looking for in terms of the involvement of parents and the involvement of a community for broad engagement particularly when you're dealing with the most controversial issues I don't think is representative of the word should by sizing well it says you should yeah doesn't mean you have to yeah the clearance hunt from the State Board

053of Education is that there be broader engagement thank you did you have particularly next steps Miss Schultz at this sorry miss mcLaughlin so I really appreciate dr. Presidio you and dr. Payne really breaking out for us what were the recommendations where was the committee on these things it's always extremely helpful to get that additional context and dr. Braeburn you weren't here when my prior FLE appointee was there but she served for several years out of Braddock district a nurse practitioner nursing professor and I just wanted to say publicly she had the highest praise for dr. Payne and continues to hold her in high regard as I do too so my point is now overrun Shack and missus working with dr. Payne very much miss Shultz said something just now as I was about to speak

054in it it really captured I think where I want to come to this with my colleagues she said something about controversial issues and I think that is what's so essential that we as the board not get drawn into and we as a school system not get drawn into this is family life education and it is my perspective that number one I absolutely value stakeholder engagement I think it's very important that the that this Advisory Committee do that it advises us with recommendations however in the end and I felt this way also with our SR NR which we're going to talk about next in the end the public the families the students all rely upon this board in this school division to operate based on research and best practice that in the end is what this

055really needs to be and so while I again with all of our bye committees every single one of our advisory committees their input and their recommendations are appreciated but I guess I would ask dr. Payne not to put you on too much notice is there anything in the committee's recommendations that from your subject matter expertise and dr. sloan's as well where you would say to the superintendent and this board these were the recommendations however as someone who's tasked with the the oversight of this here are the recommendations I would have concerns about because in the end dr. Bray Graham we can support the recommendations that come from the Advisory Committee but I don't have the subject matter expertise that staff has on this and when our advisory committees making recommendations whether it's MSA OSI or

056a you know advanced academics we welcome that input but we don't greenlight it to go into effect we still get staff to say we we can support their recommendations for the fun reasons so if that wasn't something you guys have thought about till now please don't have my question putting you on the spot now but that was kind of for me I want to I want to help this board get above the the passion that I so appreciate it's coming from our community but is there anything here that would give us pause in the responsibility we have as an educational system well first of all thank you for the compliments I I would say there isn't anything that we can support I think the responsibility on our end is to ensure that the language is

057correct so for instance there are many things in our curriculum we hope our students don't need now but may need at some point in the future so prep is one of those examples so being very clear and instruction about who prep is for what it does what it does not do saying that you know these are not decisions you may be making now but may need to make in the future and making sure they have access to that information and make sure they you know talk with their parents this is not an absence of health care providers giving that consultation because they may have a idea of health needs that may preclude them from using any medication so thank you but it at a very macro level than at this point in time there's nothing

058in the committee's recommendations that the both of you that have the ultimate responsibility in making sure and dr. Baron really it it comes to you there's nothing in the recommendations where you would say we would disagree with the recommendations coming out of the committee and think it's not educational best practice like in other words everything that's here has educational best practice in support of it James saying like obviously we don't want to green-light something that we could say from research and best practice this would not be helpful to students but if everything you see here is fine that is what gives me comfort as a board member to say right I think what you're saying is we have a lot of advisory committees that come to you and they bring things yeah and you know

059just being honest I know I won't keep repeating but since the advisory stuff this is like the first of several learning how it's done here in this role you're wanting to know separate from the Advisory Committee what our own staff would say or not say about it and how we how we've looked for that before we certainly had this presented leadership team I asked for feedback in comments I got no objections to the things that were shared have I explicitly for every Advisory Committee said I'm just being honest with you guys said it needs to come through staff and we need to green like it or not greenlight it before it comes to you no but I'm willing to talk to this board about a structure in place one other matter I would just say

060is a matter of what we did talk about I thought it was very important dr. Presidio did an outstanding presentation in my view to shared the sending opinion to share and let you see the votes and also explain on a number of slides where other people were coming from I think we need to have that kind of conversation and we need to model that more often when we bring things before the board because there's always multiple sides I like personally I like mr. moon in addition his recommended tweak as part of my journey in life a trusted adult has included clergy so I think there's little tweaks like that that we can look at I don't have as superintendent I don't have concerns about the overall recommendations brought here I do think we've got to

061figure out how family life from the day I taught it I was a government teacher I taught 12th graders what I found is a lot of our young people think they know and they don't know and as much as we'd love to thank families including my own that's you know I try to put on the parent hat and the superintendent hat I think school systems do have a responsibility to try to be an honest broker of information we've got to get the balance right as Miss Schultz said it's tricky because it's figuring out how do you create that partnership without crossing lines that are red lines for families we do have the opt-out process but we also want to make sure that we want frankly as many folks to opt in and say this is

062an important curriculum that I want to expose my son or daughter to so I'll keep in mind the other part about how to build in sort of the staff check is there anything as we do these kind of presentations do we bring you a slide at the end where there's staff concern or sort of staff recommendation I've just got to come up with what that model would look like with as we work with you all well I appreciate that I I will just say to my colleagues this is absolutely my expectation that the staff would look through any of this and if they had any again subject matter expertise concern that they inform the board we have to ensure that the public trusts our decision-making and our decision-making isn't just an advisory committee whether it's

063twelve thirty fifty people whether it's two hundred people who weigh in we represent a school division of one hundred ninety thousand kids and their families and we will be better leaders to help build trust in the community when we can say we we did take stakeholder input but we also had our subject matter experts who were reading the research and best practice who advised the board and said this is the best way to deliver FLE that to me is how we can speak with authority and also maybe help quell some of the what's the board's composition because I I will respectfully disagree with Michels I don't think this is based on partisanship political ideology in the end I believe every single resident Fairfax County wants us to deliver a family life education and frankly any

064degree of education that is based on research and best practice we do that and the publican can again say well that's a little bit more information than I think my child needs and they opt out and to the point that was raised last Thursday among our citizen participants our board members know getting our community to fill out forms and have a hundred percent participation is very difficult so the opt-out approach for FLE I still strongly support because I don't want to see a lot of families who just don't get the forms in didn't didn't know it was their children in the end will come home and talk to their parents if they're uncomfortable with what they're they're learning in the school day I mean and so I again want to thank the really hard work

065but I will also say in my final remarks I hope we as a board will partner with dr. Bray brand and help dr. Payne and help dr. Presidio and help the FLE CAC to get outside of the passions wherever people are on the issue and speak to education research best practices to help our kids and families we do that and I think we can calm down some of the rhetoric that's been going on but I'm supportive of this because I'm hearing that this represents research and best practice I'm also supportive of mr. moons Amendment as a social worker and a background in mental health counselors are important role I like the idea that we're leading with trusted adult because that could mean many things and as someone who has friends who are agnostic and some

066who were atheist you know I don't want to just delineate one or two trusted adults and and create that angst so I think mr. moons language kind of helps capture all of that and you know again I look forward to hearing what my colleagues are thinking today thank you mrs. McLaughlin was there a next step in your was there a next step in their or no I I think it doesn't need to be official I think I heard from dr. Brandt that there it's important that these recommendations annually be vetted by staff so in our future annual presentation it's just clarity there and and actually dr. braver and maybe MS Evans when the board votes on this I think it would be important for us what we're going to have the conversation that you know

067dr. Braeburn can say and any of us can ask the question I want put on the spot that says dr. brave and your staff vetted this and and in support of the recommendations that would be something I'd like to have said at the the vote okay thank you just a quick time check we do have seven more board members that wish to speak on this topic and we are a little behind so just we were intending to finish this up at 1:00 so we're obviously not going to be there but just to be cognizant of that so next three board members are mr. Wilson miss Hines in this project mr. Wilson thank you Miss heavens just to I don't know how how long this will take it may take a few more minutes so I

068would ask for my fellow board members indulgence to allow me to continue on a little bit though I do have a number of questions so the doctor presidio you mentioned that most jurisdictions develop their own programs if they're in Virginia do you know what the percentage is that develops their own program oh I don't know the process overall we've been in recent contact with all the surrounding jurisdictions and they essentially all take the approach that we do that you start with the state standards what's required and that you adopt and modify those to meet the context of your local jurisdiction so all the jurisdictions that we spoke to locally did the same thing that we do and do you know of any jurisdictions specifically that use the state curriculum that don't adopt their own Pro

069I'm sure there are some I don't have any I mean I'd be happy to try to contact the state coordinator and get some of that information for you and I and what I'm getting at is to try to understand sort of the diversity of instruction across our state I know we've talked about best practices and being in alignment with the Board of Education but I guess one question I would have is you know what is the spectrum allow for in terms of latitude amongst school systems to understand I think that is to understand what is what are the ideas within a community that people might think is appropriate so I think that would be a wonderful next step is to find out sort of like if you were to take a a poll and find

070fine jurisdictions in the state that have sort of radically different curriculums to ours for us to understand sort of what is the spectrum that that that as curriculum developers you have what latitude you have in terms of development correct well we'd be happy to ask the state coordinator I don't know respond we may or may not get from that I would say additionally though remember that this year the charge for the school system for the fleeca committee was to look at our program in comparison to the state's program and we produced that crosswalk which is posted and I would reference that for folks that have questions in the community about how our program compares to the state program because it's very comprehensive as I said it's a 78 page document that goes lesson objective by

071objective under each of the standards comparing what the state provides and recommends and what we do so I think that's a really good resource for people that have questions in the community so and I would also say that when when flee CAC this year spent an entire year asking that very question how does our program compare the state program they only developed the 21 recommendations that I shared with you but I think I hear what you're saying as being we compared lesson objectives right I mean the objec what the state provides yes yes the curriculum itself is what is more in detail developed also in Fairfax County right so I think that's sort of the specifics of what's in the lessons themselves so one thing I know is we're one of the few jurisdictions that

072actually provides public access to our curriculum so that would be very difficult to try to obtain and frankly I think that is a wonderful aspect of the Fairfax County is that we do have an open process where you can look now and see the curriculum okay I'm gonna start take the next question I'm gonna go through the slides and then I'm gonna have some other questions too so one of the things you mentioned on slide four was that by consensus the committee voted to ensure that at least four members would have the opportunity to speak on any issues and and I think miss Payne is dr. Payne is probably in a better position to answer the question since I'm not sure you are at meetings themselves but do you do you feel like there was

073meaningful discussion what prompted that vote can you talk to the board a little bit about that there was concern at the February meeting when a member you we do to here to Robert's Rules of Order and as you know at any time someone can call for the question so that occurred several times at the February meeting some of those topics had been discussed that January's meeting some had not and since there was concern expressed about not enough viewpoints were shared we I asked a committee in the March meaning if they could if they would be willing to support the ruling about the four I'm adding the wolf or the four I will say that I just want to insert really quickly thank you all for your appointees it was a very big charge this year

074there was a lot of homework to be done they all came prepared and reviewed things in advance so you know whereas you know I can't say that you know maybe their decisions were made before they arrived I don't know so I think they're I think they're it was discussion before now and so beyond concerns being brought to you did you feel like there was did you personally have concerns about as the you know director of the meeting that there was adequate discussion or was it just brought to you by members I think it I I would only be concerned if they were concerned if they were comfortable with calling for the question and they felt that they had the information that they needed either what they prepared for in advance or was there were you

075concerned at the time I was not sure okay I would say that I was not know one thing I think is really important to point out dr. Payne how many years have you been coordinating this committee 13 in 13 years of doing this work and I've only been here six but I have not been made aware of an issue where the committee felt like there was not appropriate time for discussion and discourse until that February meeting that you referenced and I just want to really congratulate and acknowledge Liz for being proactive and taking action to try to correct that to make sure that that didn't perpetuate into the future so again like she always does she just demonstrates the utmost professionalism well as someone who was at the meeting I can tell you that I

076was very concerned that that discussion was cut off peremptorily and and and members of the committee were not allowed to speak on a number of points and it happened repeatedly at that meeting so it does leave me concern that you didn't react and say hey this isn't really how this committee should operate you know even if it is in accordance with Rob's Robert's Rules order the point of the committee is that it disgusts the issues that are in the family life education program and discussed the charge that's before the committee so I do appreciate the change that was made obviously that I think was badly needed but the commit that meeting itself I have to say was was frankly not the best work of FCPS and far from it actually in terms of how that

077meeting was handled and and the the impression that was left on all the community that was there and those board members those committee members who participated was in fact the opposite of what we've discussed here which is there was no conversation there was no discussion and they in fact their voices were shut down so when we talk about diversity of viewpoints that that was a real failing at that meeting so I appreciate the change and I would and I would suggest that that it is indicative of the maybe some rethinking as we approach next year's fleek act that maybe we need to sort of look at again that process and who on who are the constituent members of the flea cat committee and where is the diversity of opinions it's on that committee mm-hmm okay

078thank you on slide six it says no recommended changes to lesson objectives K through seven can you just explain doctor pain why there were no changes recommended is were there any changes proposed how would it go I would need to go back to my notes but not that not that I recall okay I would have to go back and check okay I'm gonna this this next question I have relates to I think several board members comments about when the committee makes a recommendation and the the decision of staff to either accept that change or review that change on slide 7 you mentioned that the you are in charge of your body media it was the board the the committee voted to include that in both grades 3 & 4 I think it's what that's correct

079they've said and and the question I have is when that was proposed what was the alternative in grade 4 was there something that was removed then in grade 4 and and when that when the committee made that choice to substitute in grade 3 how long had the great for video been in place and was that also a suggestion of the committee to have that video used and I guess the question I have is I think along the lines of miss McLaughlin which is I understand that the committee is looking at the curriculum and making it an advisory vote on something but what then happens when it comes back to staff in terms of an advisory vote do you then reflect on it and say yeah but that's not really what we want to do or

080do you typically just accept them and put them in front of the board and say we would like you to vote yes or no on these recommended changes by the committee so I would just say procedurally I want to talk about a few things and then dr. Payne can address the grade 4 video in particular again we could always change our procedures but our procedures are outlined in the regulations of CPS regulations is that we bring the committee's recommendations to the board we could change that if we want it to do that but you know that has been in place prior to me coming into FCPS so we've always followed the same process I will say that we definitely reflect on any proposed changes we talk about the appropriateness of those whether or not we

081need to alert any board members about issues or concerns we look at things that were not approved in question and wonder maybe if we need to look at those again in the future the grade 4 video last year was one of those issues where we definitely had questions about you know the dissenting opinion I think had some very valid points with that that needs to be something that we look at again in our program for next year and obviously you can see that was something that the full committee approved this year right so it's so taking what you've just said then so in this case mr. moon raised a question about some specific text and and discussing whether or not the deletion of clergy was appropriate in pollution of councilor so is it fair to

082say than in this case and the presentation that on balance all of the changes that you've presented to us which were voted on the committee are also changes that you would say would be would be approved by staff and and best as opposed to a change such as such as mr. Mittal that's the purpose for today's discussion is to have that dialogue in discussion with the board and for you to be able to ask us questions about do we think and you know staffs opinion that these recommendations are appropriate back to the comments that dr. Bray Bryan expressed to Miss McLaughlin's original question we had that conversation in leadership team and we did agree as a leadership team that we felt that the recommendations of the committee in these areas were reasonable right we all

083have our own individual ideas and opinions but we felt that they were reasonably appropriate for our program and supported with you know evidence-based best practices okay and that and I and I guess then in each case then when these changes are presented they were considered to be reasonable proposals is that for an evidence base yes yep all right let's um I'm gonna I'm gonna move on because I think that one a lot kind of following on from that question I guess the next step for me would be when the board included the concept of sex assigned at birth which sounds like it was several years ago usually go what were the sources that the that I went to when the staff when what were the sources the staff to use then to make those changes

084the same ones that are listed in the slide here I need to find the slide number and then we can go to that particular slide and then and how long ago was that curriculum was rewritten in 1516 so would have been during that time frame that we accessori that's the first time that term was used yes it was implemented for all of 16 but during the 1516 school years when that's when we had the big chain there were some things went to gym halls some stated Emily and we did a total change revision so was there specific recommendations to from like the American Academy of Pediatrics to make changes in family life education programs is that how the the source was in terms of making the change or was it just you noted that this

085was now a term that was being used and then you folded it in to our curriculum as as change that's right we feel that it's appropriate to again use medically appropriate evidence-based definitions in our program when discussing the topic of gender identity that's what we've tried to do in the program okay well I think that that that the use of that phrase I think for for many in our community is a very charged phrase and I think that helping me to understand it I think would help the commuter to understand well I think maybe going to miss Schultz points about how we how we drive back with what's in our biology textbooks and understanding sort of how you know if there's a disconnect why there is a distinction between the different forums in terms of

086how we talk about you know human biology and anthropology and so I think maybe maybe I don't know whether there's a next step there but I think that I think that the I think from a community standpoint what I get a lot of feedback on is where did this come from how do we how do we now use this terminology and and if other if other jurisdictions are using it which I think the only of Virginia jurisdiction you mentioned it was Alexandria perhaps not the best couple in Virginia why happen other jurisdictions in Virginia I think there's more a fulsome conversation that might be had to help us understand it and and there and thereby be able to go back to the community on inclusion of that we we certainly could do that you know

087as always we're happy to meet with board members individually in you know at any time to talk about any questions that you or your constituents might have I mean I think the thrust of your question is you know on the topic of gender identity is that individuals that are dealing with gender identity feel that there's an incongruity between their individual gender identity and their sex that's assigned at birth I mean that that's the context for that definition so again we'd be happy to dig into that more deeply with folks if you have individual questions about that mm-hmm okay I'm sorry I've got a list now I need to turn to before I leave that topic though because you mentioned the disconnect between you know the self perception one of the questions that I have received

088from several different parents has to do with readiness you know so for example in the fourth grade slide there's talk about the incest in the topic of the that objective you know when you're talking fourth graders you might have a nine-year-old in there you know and and the question is how do you control the developmental readiness of a classroom understanding there's a diversity of maturity in the classroom for kids may you know react differently to cuts the pretty serious concept like that and and I guess it does tie into the gender identity so if we're talking about gender identity in middle school how do you how do you ensure that you're not going to trigger a lot of anxiety and children who heretofore had never even heard of the concept never never thought about is

089there is there something in place that that protects that child well one thing I would say that any lessons that we have on sexual abuse which incest is as a piece of that is to ensure that schools asked their school psychologists social workers or counselors to join them I'll also make them aware that that instruction is occurring so that if there is a concern with any particular student at the school can it so much that I mean I just my own personal life experience you know I can go to a action movie and watch you know 400 murders take place in the course of the Marvel action film and go home and sleep well or watch a show on the Holocaust and you know it is very bothersome but it's not gonna keep me away

090for months keep me away for months there are others on the other hand that would have the opposite extent some of them in my own household who would you'd have to have wild horses to drag them to those movies because it would bother them so much and and so given that there's an entire spectrum of how people react to images and ideas yeah I guess what I would say control for that no it's it's a really good question I I think you know again that comes in the training that we provide to the instructors that are delivering the program it comes in the curriculum materials that we develop to make sure that we're dealing and introducing with really difficult concepts and ways that are age-appropriate and obviously the intent around topics just as you you

091know discussed with sexual abuses that could be traumatic for children it also might be happening to children and they might need to be aware of ideas about how to talk about it or how to prevent it and it is happening in society the kids as young as age 9 so through our curriculum and through our training we find ways to make sure that we're raising those questions in age-appropriate ways but we certainly respect individuals and families that might not feel comfortable having their children exposed to a conversation like that which is why we provide for the opt-out yeah and and so let's talk about the opt-out for a moment because I mentioned last Thursday night and dr. brandy mentioned assuming that there was it was feasible from an administrative standpoint to have an opt-in well

092what would staff have an objection to an opt-in concept you know that that's a topic I really haven't reviewed with our leadership team it's been opted out frankly from the first day I walked in here in 1993 and you know we really only have limited things that we have done on an opt-out basis and this has been one of them so I'd have to reflect on that a little bit more I don't know dr. precision well I would say I mean obviously at dr. Bray brands you know Direction we'd be happy to review that more and take a look at it I can tell you a couple things right off the bat though one of the things that we actually change several years ago and dr. Bray bran was in Lynchburg was making sure that

093every one of our families receives a hard copy opt-out form because we did have conversations with a previous board that there were some concerns that when we just made the form available online some of our parents would you know legitimately miss it because they're very busy and how would they know to access it and find it and send it in so we do now require that a hardcopy opt-out form make it home with every individual student to operationalize the collection of 190,000 opt-out forms would be challenging at best I mean you know when we've talked about that before you know I do think it would be very difficult I'm not saying that it couldn't be done that would be something that the leadership team could discuss but it would involve folks you know outside of

094the instructional services department it would involve teachers and principals and the very folks on the front line that sometimes you know do feel overwhelmed by the administrative tasks that we asked them to perform so we'd need to talk about that I think with the leadership team yeah it was it was it was really that's why I premise is that assuming that the administrative hurdles could be managed you know because I think one of our speakers on Thursday made a point that you know the failure to to submit an opt-out form is not the same as consenting to the entire curriculum being taught to their child and and I think that you know one of the reports from one of the meetings this year was that of the committee members said biology doesn't matter anymore I

095think that's starting to stray pretty dramatically from I think you know many members of our community I am I don't bring this up lightly but I think roughly 70% of our population still identifies as Christian Jewish Muslim Hindu or Buddhist and and it may be that where we are in our family life education curriculum is now falling away from where the majority of our community may be in terms of what they want our school system to teach in terms of a no-life education just this week the Catholic Arlington diocese newspaper published an article that went out to however many tens of thousands of families in our region about the curriculum changes and their concerns you know we don't were not of private educational institution so we don't have to pay attention to that but when

096we some of these topics and I think now I think everyone would admit are controversial and and haven't been widely accepted necessarily throughout our culture and I think we ought to at least think about that as a possibility because and this next question maybe relates to that isn't so now that we've made with these changes what are the plans to expand this compass instruction on gender ideology or gender identity I guess into the elementary schools well I can tell you next year we have no plans to expand on that particular topic that you raise I would also say I know dr. Payne would really appreciate not having to take such a deep dive and compare the entire program in all of its materials to the state's program because that has been an immense amount of

097work for her and her limited staff who are here with us in the work session today so we would like to go back to business as usual which is looking at the content and the quality of our program four areas of improvement that might need to be made that would you know be more in line with how we've operated in the past so a much more limited scope if you will it's so-so but what a future area of improvement include revising the elementary school family life education curriculum it certainly could we don't have any plans right now for what that's going to look like for next year at all you do other jurisdictions say Montgomery County or Alexandria that you mentioned have those types of changes to their family life education curriculum I'm not sure

098what other divisions plans are internally currently you know do we know what they're doing at the school one might know I know Prince William said that they are just going to implement sexual orientation gender identity into their curriculum they're working on materials from resources now so that has not been implemented yet do you know Montgomery County or Alexandria what they're doing Gunnery County they're waiting I think she said next year they're Montgomery County it's Marilyn their health sort of Sol as if you will and the FLE our revised at the same time every six or seven years I think they have a revision coming up so they're waiting for that as far as you know they currently do not include well I'm actually looking at my crosswalk document the duck should paint help prepare in

099terms of some of these comparisons just internal notes on a few things and it does appear that Montgomery County has been instructing on gender identities gender identity since 2008 in elementary school I don't know about the grade levels I know Alexandria I think but it does it it has gender identity instruction in sixth grade six and eight okay I'm going to change topics that now so recently there was a public incident in Falls Church regarding sexting and I'm this is not at one of your slides but how do we address that topic and family life education it's explicit I believe in eighth grade and I'm looking at my staff back there I know it's an eighth grade while we're waiting for that answer just want to clarify because I know people are listening people are

100here that that incident was not in Fairfax County's Falls Church it was the city of Falls Church school system just just inner core inflation yes at the middle school I would have to I know it's explicit in eighth grade mister mister Bethany I'm not trying to cut you off but I would ask if some of these questions are things that you might want to separate for the for the board to understand you know how we are ensuring that we're not having we're minimizing any problems that we have them along those lines and similar a similar type question is I would like to know how our curriculum handles this the explosion of pornography and and what we are doing in terms of helping children navigate that world that is you know sort of a click away

101for them do I don't know that we do we address the issue of pornography in our curriculum no sir not at this time I I would would ask that that maybe at some point um dr. Bray brand that the staff talked about that and then you know I think that's a huge influence on our culture currently and I think that you know sort of maybe that's even an elephant in the room when it comes to down life education instruction I think we have some information in the SRR around it and if we can review about the FL EPA and in our digital citizenship training again that we do with kids in terms of you know what's appropriate to access online digital citizenship includes many top I don't mean to go down that that path right

102now but I would say in the trainings that we provided for parents in terms of the courses that they can complete and do with their kids those are the kinds of things that we're trying to make sure that we're supporting parents to figure out how to appropriately monitor and talk to kids about appropriate use of technology and web content so not to say that it couldn't be an fle but to your question about where we have some ends well yeah and I guess the the you know there's there's in FLE there's topics of consent and you know lack of consent is part of our instruction and you know appropriate touched inappropriate touch but if you I think that that's not the complete story because I think that where we have I have two boys and

103two girls they are very much influenced about just appropriate behavior you know from what they with the images they see and that those images you know are unfortunately very pornographic at times there's a whole industry we now know that's billions and billions of dollars that takes advantage of that so I think that you know we may need to more correctly deal with that issue and kind of peel with it head-on we're gonna keep our kids safe thank you are you finished thank you so much miss Hines to be followed by miss Paul check to be followed by Miss Korbut Sanders okay thank you first of all I do want to thank the committee I don't know how many committee members we might have here today but I know it's hard work and I know people

104did do a lot of homework I also want to be sure to thank the dissenters who wrote the dissenting opinions I think it was very respectfully written it lets the board know what your concerns were and I and I appreciate that dr. Payne and staff that you make sure those dissenting opinions have a chance to be heard it's it's helpful to us I think I understand there was a difficult meeting in February and I also appreciate that dr. Payne and the committee made some changes that you know made the process feel more inclusive and be more inclusive and I think I think result is the report that we have which is actually shows a significant amount of unity you know it does not seem like a divided committee at the end of the day and

105that's good because these issues can divide people so appreciate the question of parents has trusted partners I wanted to come back to that a little bit because I I think that's very important I mean I you know I think we have to trust parents to do their homework and make their decisions about for their children about something as important as family life education and I personally support I mean and it's a state requirement that we provide the opt-out as I understand it it's it's guaranteed by state law so I just wanted to we've touched on it a little bit but just make sure everybody understands that all families can opt out of all or any fle lessons and the efforts we make to make that as easy and transparent as possible as we do provide

106the curriculum online we we belt-and-suspenders the message to parents at the beginning of the year online and and a physical paper copy and so i anything we can do to continue to make that a transparent and smooth process for parents I think will help but it's a very important part of the program so just to close I I would just say again I think the committee has done a great job I I think if anybody would like to see changes on that committee you know that's something that we would bring to a forum and ask governance to take on and I think you know I personally I don't know I mean the committee has been operational for a while I don't know how many flee CAC members are current parents I don't know how anyone

107really knows the answer to that question I don't I'm not sure that we should have that as a litmus test I'll just put that out there right now because I think there are a lot of people in the community who can be helpful and they don't necessarily need to be current parents but we definitely would need to have you know a further school board conversation about that and I I say that because we do provide complete authority and complete power to parents to control what their children learn through the opt-out so I don't have any next steps thanks finish the committee I agree with mr. moon I I think if it if it doesn't make if it doesn't hurt us to put the clergy and counselor language back in there and it makes some parents

108feel more confident that we're meeting their needs I say let's do it thank you miss Patrick yes thank you I also want to send my regards from his pain and the work you do I know every member of that committee in the community is grateful for your professionalism and your excellent work so thank you for your 13 years of service to the committee I also want to recognize the parliamentarian mr. Morgan and thank you for your work and supporting the committee it does sound like for many years you know there were not issues and using Robert's Rules and when a problem arose you worked quickly to address that so I think that's exactly what I would expect and I think what we would expect of those leading the committee so I appreciate that and second

109miss Hines and thinking all the committee members I think it's helpful for us to see both the recommendations and the dissenting report and to see the information that is there and that was discussed so thank you for that I also want a second dr. Brandt saying that this is for us to be honest brokers of information I think that is really important when we think about there are philosophical differences but really our number one goal is to ensure our students are safe have the information the knowledge to empower them to have these conversations at home I know having been raised by two parents who've been together since they were 18 and 19 there were some issues that until I had a Feli lessons at school did not go home but then went home and had

110those conversations with my parents so when it came to dating there was very little experience they could share it but I was able to have those conversations with some more knowledge so thank you beyond that I do think it's important to to enable students to have those conversations with trusted adults I know this wasn't brought up but knowing that if we are going to go back and add and I'm okay with defining what a trusted adult is I personally would like us to also include a physician especially knowing personally I've always had much older male rabbis as clergy where I attended and and know that I would have felt more comfortable speaking to my female pediatrician about some issues and concerns so I'm happy to support if we want to define what trusted adult is

111I don't and especially if we're looking at the American Academy of pediatric and physicians for some of our work if my board members would be amenable to including physician as one of those trusted adults would you be open to health care provider yes yes nurse practitioners another thing to get health care provide you thank you that's usually language yes that would be wonderful so uh I know we didn't want to add more but if we are defining it I think a health care provider would be helpful just to give students an option of where to turn mr. paljah good I'd suggest do you work with mr. mu okay thank you beyond that I do I want to point out again that we do have very public access to the curriculum to the up up tout

112and I appreciate that that has become much more accessible over time and I think it's very important that we ensure that students have access to this information into the curriculum and the ability to opt out so thank you that's all miss Corbett seems to be followed by miss Keys Gemara to be followed by mr. Nate Kovacs thank you and I go my colleagues appreciation for not only the work of dr. Payne's dr. Payne herself and her staff but the work of the committee because without that collaborative effort we wouldn't be where we're at today and when we look at any sort of curriculum and any changes to the curriculum we we should be looking at it from the lens of why why do we need to change things and part of the why is that

113our society is changing our communities are changing and so I appreciate you looking at our curriculum from that lens I also want to thank you for including language about boundaries and consent and bystander awareness I know you and I had a conversation early on about how important it is for bystanders to if they see something say something and to get help it would certainly save lives so I appreciate your work in that area and the inclusion of the opioid language because that too is an epidemic facing our community I do support the move of the conflict resolution into our health curriculum because I think that's a skill that all children need rather than just huh and adults yes you are correct and so I think that's great I will support mr. moon and misspell checks

114modification amendment to address not only the clergy but I think healthcare professionals are important and as far as first staff and for people in the community I think we need to really talk a bit about the importance of the opt-out and because it does give ownership to families and to staff members so if a staff member wants to opt out of teaching family life education I think that that should be fully embraced and accepted but it's also important for family members to look at the curriculum and choose to opt out but one of the challenges when we do have opt out is that we need to have real and meaningful work for students to do when they're opting out and so I would ask for you dr. brand that we have some sort of parallel

115curriculum or some sort of real and meaningful work for our students when they opt out and that it's age-appropriate if I might we do have opt-out lessons for K through 10 they are also posted for parents to see as well they are aligned to the general health standards so they're non fle topics and they are meant for students who have whose parents have opted them out so we have that I will tell you that I have had parents say that they've opted out and their students weren't giving the given those opportunities so I guess this was the first reality of implementation so this was the first year so we might want to add a little bit more context or information about that so that parents know that they have that option but I do want

116to say I mean because of your advocacy and other board members advocacy that is why we took the step to develop those aligned lessons so now we just need to make sure that they're implemented consistently when families and students choose to opt out thank you miss Keyes Gemara well I too want to thank everybody that everyone that's worked with this process mr. Payne dr. Payne and all the committee members and the dissenters and just so many people have come to our meetings and offered their opinion I also want to to say that I appreciate our board members working together to try to make sure that we're talking about the same information I know that I've received a number of letters that just made assumptions that weren't actually the fact and so this is an opportunity

117for us to correct that I actually even received an apology from someone so I think that our our people are receptive to discussion so I appreciate this opportunity I will say my perspective is to try to make sure that all of our children are able to get the information they need to make good decisions but also to be inclusive and not to create any type of shame for any child I am going to take a slightly different approach than some of my colleagues because I'm actually concerned about some of the information that is struck out because I think it may I would love to hear the explanation as to why for example there's a seems to be an overall change from disease to infection and I'd like to hear the explanation as to why we

118made that change the reason I question that is in my work with kids their ability to assess a risk properly is less than optimal and so I think that perhaps the language disease would help to understand that this is serious business but perhaps there's reasoning that I don't understand so I'll start there I have a number of questions did you want me to go through all my questions first you can address that let's do one at a time okay sure so the sexually transmitted infections that is the acceptable term medically so we made that change several years ago okay so in some cases were just cleaning up some of that language okay all right we do talk about that you know sexually transmitted infections may cause disease like HIV to AIDS so we do talk

119about the disease process but STI is the acceptable term okay I figured there was a reason but I wanted to explain why as somebody who works with this these issues or works with children on a regular basis as to why I would question that I then want to look at section 10 point 7 yes I look at ten point seven and eleven point three there are a number of things struck out there and I would love to hear particularly I understand the strikeout of violence in the first sentence I think that was just looks like it was for clarification because it was not perhaps as well written as it could have been but when you look at the bottom for prevention of sexual violence and abuse including and dealing with abuse violence etc what was

120the reasoning for those strikeouts it was just a rewording because we have in not what's not struck out we have verbal physical emotional sexual abuse internet exploitation courses sex and human sex trafficking so a lot of that was recaptured in the wording I guess my concern is there is something very violent about abuse and I maybe I'm overlooking it as I look at it quickly here but I would not want to lose that meaning because I think in translating this we're softening the the harm that we're talking about and I think the effort was was to do the exact opposite was to reduce victim blaming and that's why you know they talk about the fault and responsibility and we talk about abusive and coercive behaviors right but there's something very violent in the inherent nature

121of this type of abuse and I and I would like for our kids to understand that this isn't just I'd like the girl and I touched a girl but that there was a violation and it falls in the category of violence right and then it says teen dating violence and the objective so the descriptive statement is supposed to explain any you know concepts that we felt needed further explanation so maybe we just okay we're not gonna lose that I'll make that you know I don't know if I can list that as a next step to make sure we're if staff can look at the most effective way because I do think in working with young people that they may not grasp how these actions are impacting another individual and I would you state your next

122step for staff to look at these issues can I suggest maybe miss keys Gemara and we can do it now but if you wanted to come up with language I know mr. moon is gonna work with Dalian come up with language if you have some language you want us to ultimately have included in here that captures that essence we could work to have that ready for the perhaps now what I'm trying to make sure is that we don't soften the language with respect to understanding the impact upon a victim and I was just gonna suggest we'd be happy to work with you some draft language you can propose to your colleagues sure great thank you all right so now I think I'm going to go to eleven point three for the same reasons there's an

123overall softening of this language I believe we mentioned controlling behaviors that lead I have in my notes controlling behaviors that lead to sexual assault violence and domestic abuse again I don't I would like to look for language that properly conveys the impact upon the victim this is not to to blame the victim at all but I think that part of our education is helping all of our students to understand how you can harm another person and I'm not sure that when we look at what's available to us in the media or how we talk about things in a flippant way that that is clearly communicated and so I'd like to work toward language in 11.3 to make sure that we're doing that so just for the next steps for our board clerk then staff would

124work with MS Keyes Gemara on ten point seven and eleven point three draft language on those proposed lesson objectives to be shared with board colleagues to bring an amendment on June 14th right okay yes that'd be great thank you okay [Music] okay so there were some objections to well I'll leave that lets with respect I just want to clarify because I understood this language sex assigned at birth is used in the definitions and in the discussion regarding transgender children is that correct but those are the limited uses of that language is that correct correct okay so I in in that regard I will say that I will support mr. moons concern recommendations and Miss Paul checks addition to that I also heard some comments about medical risks and that things of that nature I'm a

125little nervous about that because I think getting into the risks I don't want to get in the business of consulting in the way that a doctor or you know people in the medical profession would do and so I don't think we're qualified to do that so those are my comments at this time thank you Thank You mr. net kopecks thank you and thank you dr. presidio and dr. Payne for your hard work on this committee we know it was a challenging year and you've been doing it a long time so thank you for doing it with grace and poise and making certain that all people's opinions were heard and valued I also want to thank the flea cat committee members who were here I know there are several I know my representative is here so

126thank you so much for your hard work on this committee we do appreciate it and thank you also to those who voiced the dissenting opinion on this report we appreciate your opinion as well and that makes us work together and look at the whole picture so thank you all for all that you've done I have very few questions other than the one I am I was miss Keith Kumar and I were side barring on 11.3 so that's page 24 so I can be added to working with you all to do that but my concern was with the descriptive statement where we talked about instruction will include identification of controlling behaviors and we talked about coerced sexual activity including human trafficking and digital and social media taking out the word sexual assault if you you know

127if you want to speak to that as to why I think you're going to tell me it was for clarity and I appreciate that but I do think you know when you talk about course sexual activity that's compelling by force whereas assault is attempted violence and I think that maybe have a little bit different and and I think that lesson needs to be really reinforced and and kept in there so that would be an amendment that I would be willing to put in for that one I'd be happy to work on the language at 10.7 I think that's a little more complicated but for this one I would just appreciate putting back in sexual assault to that statement we'd be happy to work with you on a proposed language change okay so before I go

128to three quick go back I will just also thank everyone who worked on this I know it was a phenomenal amount of work and thank you to the committee members I see my fleet CAC appointee as well thank you for your many years of work on the committee and I will agree with my colleagues that we also very much appreciate the advocates whether dissenters or whether supporters of the changes coming out today coming to have emails to board members and to engaging the committee in engaging board members with your views so thank you all for for your advocacy I do have three go backs and then we'll go to next steps I do hope that we'll be fairly quick I have Michelle's mr. Wilson is Rockland miss yeah I didn't have a chance to put

129together my next steps I kind of want her to wait to see where everybody else was before I provided those I do want to note that basically with the way that it's been described and I and I appreciate the fact that this has historically been the way that the length the language exists such that staff merely brings forward the recommendations of the committee but the reason why there wasn't larger dissent on the committee was because of the frankly homogeneity of the makeup of fleek back and so that's actually the underlying issue is yes there wasn't a lot of dissent because or the votes were overwhelming because there there is a common purpose for many who are on the committee and I think if we're in an evidence-based practice of delivering information to children and and

130medically accurate I appreciate miss Keys Gemara in particular saying we're not in the role of playing the doctor I agree and I think there's a whole lot in this curriculum that should actually not be within the realm because we are actually providing medical information to children and that's why I let off the whole question which is what is the purpose of FLE and if it is to impart you know information about the human growth and development of the students in our in our system we've we've kind of ranged far afield from that so that's actually part of the point and so I did provide some next steps to and they're not up there yet but I'll just just quickly read over them because I think it gets to the heart of what some of this

131what some of the underlying issues are which is are we at a a decision tree for this board of approving a curriculum that comes from a handful people that's been voted on that staff necessarily hasn't written I mean there's a dissenting of and in by two or three people on the committee but there isn't even we haven't even provided in our own regulation the means by which staff actually provides their and maybe this gets to miss McLaughlin's point their professional opinion on what the recommendations are and you know for example the ninth grade video that was taken out I'm not exactly sure how that was taken out so we have this whole discussion about the 4th grade video but then the 9th grade video was taken out and it wasn't I can't find a vote

132on it by the committee and so it seems like there's things that staff can just do because staff decides professionally it's the best thing to do but then sometimes not and so that disparity I think elevates some of these concerns of you know what are the FDA and CDC guidelines and clinical protocols regarding prop we discussed it says next steps sure sure we can discuss next steps okay thank you mr. Wilson thank you just very quickly it was mentioned earlier that by one of my colleagues that prep is not approved for children under 18 is that accurate or not I guess it's the question I have initially I believe that to be accurate are there are there any other pharmaceuticals that are included in the fle curriculum by name that are not approved for kids

133under the age of 18 I don't know that for sure but I don't believe so again a lot of it is not only age but what their health status is or I just I'm trying to understand the inclusion of this one specific drug as being specifically mentioned in our curriculum well it's really because of the Center for Disease Control taking a very active position that due to the effectiveness of this particular medication for high-risk populations that individuals and high-risk population should be aware of its existence so again that that's you know we're not for all ages well they don't provide guidance on age yeah I guess my question is that's a decision for a for a family to make with a medical professional I don't disagree with that I just if there are no other

134medicines that we include I mean certainly many medicines could be helpful to children that that parents can choose with the consultation with their physician I just I'm trying to understand this particular medicine what was the thought process and why not other medicines well because of its effectiveness rate dealing with you know sexually transmitted diseases so I mean it's again aligned to that particular lesson objective so you have to talk about it in the context with which it's discussed in the curriculum well I think I'd like to ask is the next step that you that you do go back and look and see whether there are any other people that may already have that but I think that's the clerk would record that it was something yeah I just wanted to have a quick go back

135because what Minsky's Gemara and his Koufax said about the language and ten point seven and eleven point three I share their concerns and I'm glad they kind of brought focus to it obviously we always want to have streamlined language but I worry that the changes have made things far too obscure very abstract and we're talking about families and and high school kids especially being able to understand sort of the intent there so you know obviously dr. burr and we don't want to create extra work for staff so even if it's not a matter of yet again a third iteration I'm I'm still a little bit of a loss of how these highly specific terminologies were pulled out when they're they're all pretty clear and as both a parent and a board member I feel like

136I can read that know what's the descriptive purpose and I so the high level language I just wanted you all to know I'm not only supportive of it I appreciate that you don't want to be working with twelve board members on this but I very much want to see at minimum we either restore what I think is really important descriptive language or you all figure out the balance there but I really look forward to seeing those amendments I think it's important thank you and so now we can go to next steps before we do i neglected to say I do support mr. moons Amendment as well as Miss Powell checks suggestion for an addition so madam clerk if you could pull this up let's see what the spectrum is mr. Wilson are you suggesting we

137compare our curriculum with any others in this yeah unfortunately the staff wasn't able to identify any specific jurisdictions that might be a good comparison to get a sense of the spectrum so I think I'm not asking a every countywide review but maybe there's a way to talk to the Board of Education and get a sense and then kind of quickly have us understand what that spectrum might be yeah as I said we'd be happy to contact the state educational specialists in that area to see what they can provide I would suggest then that we're that that it'd be worded so it doesn't suggest that we're going to go line by line through somebody else's curriculum [Music] although mrs. Evans I think we have done that they've mentioned that today actually that they've looked at other

138curriculums so what you're asking is that they go to the State Board of Education to get a general comparison of our curriculum is that correct is that what you're looking for I think what I said initially is what I'm talking about which is that I think since the majority maybe of counties are providing their own curriculum that's compliant with the Board of Education standards and we have ours and we do certain things in ours I would like to understand what is the range what's the diversity of you know from one end of the spectrum to being sort of the may perhaps not an accurate term to be the most socially conservative to the most socially progressive I think that would be a useful understanding because right now what I see is comparison between the lesson

139objectives and it's pretty tight but without understanding exactly what's being implemented there's really hard to understand what is possible is asking for and again I don't know if it's available I don't know if it's something that we could obtain but I'd be happy to talk to the Department of Education to see what might be available besides did you have a comment or question well if dr. presidio feels comfortable answering the question that's fine I was a little confused by socially conservative and socially liberal I'm not sure whether staff is going to be asked to make that sort of determination yeah I mean the language on the next step I mean again that that's an in the board's purview to try to decide but what I would ask the state is to see you if we

140could get examples from other jurisdictions in terms of what their curriculum is I think yeah without making any value job right so let's see how many board members support doing that how many opposed doing that okay so we don't have that as the next step how does FCPS FLE curriculum handle sexting and pornography so you're just looking for a factual answer to that question well right I mean I don't even know if it's included in the curriculum at this point so the I mean I think that they were gonna go back and look I think it's what you said and to understand sort of and and maybe to understand what the proposal might be going forward okay so how many can support that as the next step how many oppose that as the next step

141okay Oh miss Rogers is it possible to add to that I believe as of a few years we have actually state legislation around that I believe delegate Simon passed the the revenge pornography bill so to see if our students are being educated on the legal consequences so now you're kind of into the SR in our world and so again we would be talking about where an FLE where in digital citizenship where an SR and our might some of these topics be found along the long lines of Miss science comments I don't know the handle is exactly the right word you know but you get the point okay all right that was a majority so we'll do go with that miss Keith Kumar do you do you need that as a next step where you simply

142gonna do that do you want that recorded that you're going to work on this amendment okay okay proposed language I'd like to leave it just so our staff has some clarity that that's to follow up with a board member if we're going to have a lot of next steps it's helpful for us to track then in that case I would suggest we capture mr. moons although I think I can work on it like I think I can handy all right well let's see let's read so does that capture what you're asking for does that work okay so let's see how many people can support number two I mean I know it's alright but if we're going to capture it we need to capture it all right Schultze provide FDA and CDC guidelines and Clement a

143clinical protocols on prep for children under the age of under the age of 18 do you want to oh okay so you're asking for staff to give any guidelines and protocols on this let's go clarifying question do you mean provide that to the board or to the children to the board okay okay miss Corbin Sanders I wouldn't I don't have a problem with this but I think one of the thing if we're going down that path then we should also include it in context in the context of whether there is an a higher risk of HIV for student for children between the ages of say 13 to 29 and whether the CDC has any recommendations on addressing that risk because we should see for what well it's not necessarily so it's first define what the

144prot why there's a why the CDC is even addressing prep so what is the problem we're defining and the problem is is that a separate next step Miss Korbut Sanders do you think I think it really needs to put it in context of what is the risk factor that they're addressing because the CDC doesn't address anything unless there's a risk factor and so is there a risk factor no for HIV what is the risk factor of HIV cases for the adolescent and young adult population that prep addresses or prep could address I'll make it separate if you like but I would also look at it as a not only general but also where Virginia falls in HIV cases okay well with that let's go back to miss Schultz's request that staff provide provide any guidelines

145and protocols how many people can support that how many people oppose that okay so that is we agree to that let's go to miss Corbett Sanders it's related but we're making it separate what's the risk factor of HIV cases for the adolescent young adult population that prep could address is that yes I would have Virginia in there as well okay that's that's a majority we'll go with that Schultz provide with the current FCPS textbooks and curriculum state about the basis of sex so the reason the reason I state that is because we have textbooks that clearly and rather definitively say that the chromosomes are what determine sex so I would like this is I mean we're we're not going to use sex we're gonna use sex assigned at birth and I want a recognition of

146for us to understand what's being taught actually in the textbooks and what's in the curriculum before we change other parts of the occur can do you mean outside of FLE or out so outside of the FLE curriculum is what you're looking for yes miss sorry just a process question I mean in layman's terms I mean sex can be an action between two people so I mean I think miss Schultz's request we need to have the clarifier about the basis of where the current I mean like the current state about the basis I mean what you just want to know is what's the current terminology being used in our textbooks in curriculum related to biological sex definitions right by with current textbooks and the curriculum use in referencing biological sex well I put sex or biological

147sex cos I don't know I I'm not assuming that all the textbooks say biological sex so I'm trying to cover say sex and gender no I didn't say all I know is unless staff maybe you're all clear and that's fine but Jim's saying obviously we're not talking about I don't want to know what your current textbooks and curriculum we're using say with regret I don't mean sex between two people that's clearly not what this is intending I'm talking about the sex with regard to a person is telling us that sex assigned at birth is used in this context of the conversation of transgender so no that's what they just they're not nodding their heads yes no no I mean try to let me try to restate that I apologize if there's any confusion so the

148proposed lesson objective change where the committee is proposing to use the terminology sex assigned at birth only pertains to that one lesson objective that deals with transgender the definitions that I read during the work session on biological sex I mean I could read I could reread that statement but biological sex is still in our definitions in the FLE program so the reason I'm asking this question if I understand the Schultz's question is it's relevant to us only in the context of discussing transgender people just based on what we're discussing here that's correct well actually what the issue is which I I sort of got a clarification from dr. Presidio is that there's going to be places now in the fle where we say biological sex there's places in the FLD where we're going sex assigned

149at birth and then there's places in our regular curriculum and in our textbooks where we say what and I want that third part filled out which is okay what happens in the rest of the curriculum and what happens in our textbooks what else is being said the question is where what is that weird what's the crosswalk if you will across because now we're doing two different things just within the FLE curriculum and how does that correlate to what's happening in the rest of our curriculum so but I just want to clarify the change that they are describing today only took place with respect to the issue discussing transgender so what it was before for everything else is still the same that's my understanding so maybe I've got an old version of the report but on

150page three of the report that I reviewed it says change less than objectives in grades eight nine and ten to strike biological sex and replace with sex assigned at birth is that meaning that is that incorrect so we don't we don't have the report or the slides of so I would suggest we pull up probably the slides and we need to go to let me find the correct slide I apologize slide 9 this is actually why I'm asking for this it's confusing for us even here at the table I think we just need a crosswalk that's all I'm trying to do I think it's ten I think it's done well it's on two slides yes oh I'm sorry nice let me review this and I apologize I know it's late and it's on page five

151of the report is the first price where it occurred right we have the slides up now so it says only only related to gender identity okay so I'm gonna go ahead and review this one more time and I apologize for the confusion this is obviously a very important point for the board and for the community so you see lesson objective eight point five in our emotional social health domain the particular lesson objective is that students will identify the development of individual identity occurs over a lifetime and includes the component of sexual orientation and gender identity then in the descriptive statement you see that the committee has proposed that we strike biological gender and replace it it's sex assigned at birth so when we look at where that actually occurs in our curriculum this is the

152only change that the committee is recommending but the term sex assigned at birth is currently in our curriculum in our lesson definitions section on topics related to gender identity so I want to read that statement that definition again because we're not I need to find my find the right page we're not recommending a change outside of that lesson objective eight point five but in our definition sections we define biological sex so at grade eight we say biological sex is a person's biological sex that they're assigned at birth it's associated primarily with the physical attributes their reproductive Anatomy and other anatomical physiological structures chromosomes and hormuz own and hormones so biological sex is defined within the context of the gender identity concepts as your sex assigned at birth which is associated with your physical attributes reproductive

153Anatomy in other anatomical physiological structures so what people say that you're striking those biological ideas from the definition of biological sex we're not doing that we're talking about well it's still in the lesson definition so I mean I understand it's confusing I definitely understand people will disagree with it but I just want to state it as plainly as possible that the change that the committee is recommending is just with respect to the language in the descriptive statement of 8.5 at this time dr. Presidio I don't mean to be too particular on this but I think that the report is pretty clear and I think maybe dr. Payne can clarify what exactly the committee voted on and it and it it it is pretty clear it says change less than objectives in eight nine ten to

154strike biological gender that doesn't say just for 8.5 if I I appreciate if that's all we're gonna do is just eight point five I think that makes sense but just to clarify dr. Payne at the meeting what was the decision of the flee committee they wanted to change less than objectives eight nine and ten but it only appears in grade eight now the language is used in lessons in ninth and tenth grade but it's not in the objective itself and so if other occur analysis of the term biological sex would that also be replaced elsewhere in the curriculum with other uses in whatever age grade 7 7 through 12 or other uses of biological sex being replaced with sex assignment birth my understanding was that it was but if you're telling me it's not then

155and maybe it's just a correction to the report itself I don't know I think it I think it's definitely a correction to the report because again there's there is no lesson objective in grade 9 and 10 where that language occurs it does occur in the lesson definitions which I just read definition of biological sex miss science did you have a couple I'm just thinking we're on next steps and we're digging back in and I feel like we've already spent a lot of time on all of this so I wonder if we could get back to mrs. Phillips's yeah and if I could maybe restate it and ask Miss Schultz or stated in my own understanding and asked Michelle to this is accurate I think what Michelle says asking for is for us to see in

156our biology science textbooks everywhere that we define sex / gender what that we can crosswalk that ourselves we don't have the textbooks are you asking for them to give us that so I am confused because the report does say that any place where by a biological sex occurs replace it with sex assigned at birth so I there is a increasing lack of clarity unfortunately a usually a work session provides more clarity but this is just we now have two different interpretations or definitions of sex in our Fla we have in some place it's biological sex or sex some place it's sex assigned at birth and I'm just wondering what the rest of our curriculum says and I think if we're going to go to the place where we're incorporating this at a younger grade or

157more clarity or less clarity at a younger age I do think that if we're teaching at some place we have to understand what's being taught someplace else it's not that difficult for us to know what's because I think we understand miss Schultz's advocacy it seems to me just as one board member that that's more work than I would want staff to have to do well let's do this you know let me have our folks take a look if it's too difficult or too complicated again we'll come back and say so if we can find it we'll find it so I'd rather for the spirit we've had a very healthy discussion today on two very big topics I'm confident either we'll be able to figure it out in short order or if it takes more time

158we'll come back and let the board know all right well let's see how many people can support asking for this and again I believe Michelle's wanted it for our nan FLE because we've gotten great you're correct it's not it's not the FLE nan FLE textbooks and and curriculum about the basis of sex which you've you've told us is not the act but biological sex or whatever all right so let's see how many people can support asking staff to do this how many people oppose it all right that's majority support so we will ask for that provide the list of medical risk voted down by the committee medic okay we they're just we're number there were a number of topics where the met whether or not to include medical risks should make their way into the

159curriculum and those were not voted I just rather than like the whole dissertation I just like to know what the medical risks were that were voted down to not to be included in the curriculum was that not outlined in the presentation which ones they were talking about I I think I'm a little confused you so things like what what are the medical what are the medical risks pharmaceutically two different drugs two different procedures so we don't present as far as a transgender individual transitioning such as or birth control or anything else I mean this is not just transfer this is just through the curriculum in general we ask a clarifying question for doctor pain did the committee vote on discuss and vote on any medical risks of any other medical procedures or medications there was

160discussion on adding the risks and side effects of different contraceptive methods least they wanted to add it to grades nine eleven and twelve it is an eye great it is I think that girls should have access to what are the risks of putting chemicals into your body I mean I just I think I was just trying to clarify how how expansive that list of medical procedures or well that's why I was asking dr. Payne and if that's the only one we certainly can provide information on that but I I just wanted to clarify was one I think that motion failed so nothing changes that's in there so we're still giving students the risks yes makes it so yes here's the information here's the pro I mean this is no different than I am and anywhere

161else in any of our information I want to the pros I want to know the cons and then let the person make the information and I just want to know if we've if we've actively said we're not going to include any a risk I'd like to know about it but we definitely can do that I think it'll be a relatively short list for this purpose okay how many board members want to see that list how many do not all right it's 2 to 3 so more members to vote if you possibly can because it would be nice to get through this list relat you know with some I know it's tough because we don't really have time to discuss these next steps which I've kind of been thrown at us but if if you have

162two people voting for and nobody votes against I would not say that's a majority supporting it I would say that's not a majority supporting it all right so I don't think so I think the votes are the majority of people here we're on six out of out of quite a few so well but it was it was 2 to 3 so let's try again how many people want to support number six how many people didn't say no to asking for that information all right so we won't have that as the next step provide the normative term for sex and biological what do you mean by normative terms can I ask a point of clarification or point of order I absolutely appreciate all these next steps being put up here I don't quite understand and I

163can't vote on many of them because I don't know the context because they were put up without a discussion at the board table and so I would just urge that in the future I mean we can certainly go through these now but I do think from a governance point of view that we have to have a conversation about how we put next steps on the at the bottom of an agenda without having I agree network with Sanders this is very unlike some of our other next steps next steps were typically presented at the table and then we had time for discussion I think that's why we're struggling right now what we see here is we don't have context and we haven't had a conversation and that's why board members are so now we're discussing and

164we're discussing quite quite all we can say is clearly be a amount of time that was allotted on this agenda for this topic was insufficient this is the very first time so this has been in development this this curriculum has been in development for the better part of a year we've had one chance to talk about it staff chose not to present to us on Thursday night where we could have asked some initial questions this is the very first time and in an effort to try to have everybody bring as much information to the table some of us curbed our comments I could I could have taken all the time from the microphone but I would have been a shooed away from the microphone by by the meeting manager so these are these are reasonable

165questions that all have ties to the conversation that's happened around the table I have a process suggestion and dr. Bray when this really turns to you these are highly detailed and I agree with a lot of board members it takes some real reflection for any of us to be voting yes or no to these I would suggest that these be submitted to dr. Bray bran Keene staff review them with Miss Schultz and mr. Wilson who have submitted them and if there's anything that mr. dr. Braverman says that's too much for my staff I'm not going to do it then you know at that point he can just send it back out we'll figure out another way but there no way with it's already 220 that we can go through these I'm not gonna vote for

166anything I'm sitting here abstaining because too many of these things require talking but it's fine for mr. Wilson and Schultz to want information so why can't we just capture it as here's them from additional information that additional board members want and they'll be shared with the full board and there you go I mean as and if dr. Brandt says in shares this list is 16 we can't get done it and and I think you know any board member can certainly talk to staff and get answers to specific questions that they have about the curriculum it's not necessarily something that the full board has been asking for as part of our consideration I think what we what we're going to need is anything that the board feels it needs before we make our decision on June

16714th is something that should be up there but to the extent this is information that Miss Schultz and mr. Wilson want to have that we should ask them to sit down with staff and and ask for this information so having said that that would be my suggestion going forward and unless there's something that the board actually needs to vote on getting information isn't something the board needs to vote on miss Hines well yeah I hear you so what I'm doing right now and thank you Miss McLaughlin I think you made a good a good suggestion I mean I'm looking at it right now there's nothing in here given what's on that page that I feel like I need right so my feeling is let's go ahead and let mr. Schultz inand and mr. Wilson ask

168their questions directly of superintendent Bray brand and if there are things that can be answered before we have to vote please share them with us in a superintendent memo or and then that takes care of the rest of this meeting right well I'll entertain that as a motion then if you want to make that oh all right well how many people can support Oh mr. Wilson go or anything thank you miss Evans I guess I would say first of all number 16 I don't think we didn't get down to number 16 but the one that it's my next my name on is the next step that's actually not what I want I think it's already covered in the in the one above I think we've got don't we have a next step on on prep

169already that I thought but I didn't have a next step that I wanted to have on there which is for dr. burr a brand and staff to evaluate the possibility of an of using a different type instead of an opt-out and opt in given the demographics in our in our county and and because I think it is an important question to understand you know what is the administrative burden to do something like that given given what we know to be the the communities within our County so I think we understand that as for these I think miss Schultz was trying to to promote efficiency in our meeting I would advocate that instead of just saying that these questions need to be submitted that if she wants time at the microphone to ask her questions of

170staff who are here that she chose to put them into the next step format that we might all benefit my hearing answers I'll stipulate however the meaning manager wants but I would just like to say from a from a governance perspective we've never prevented a board member from putting up a next step so if we're going to change the government we regularly just submit next steps morelli prevent present next steps that come as a part of and the reason I didn't develop my next steps is because I did actually want to have a fulsome discussion hear what all my fellow board members had to ask and there were great questions about sexting and and the level of occurrence of that and there were things that as a result of the conversation created an accept that's

171actually how it normally works now if people don't want to publicly vote on this which our own committee did not publicly vote this is part of the problem I don't know which there are a couple of members from for example the medical community on our fleet CAC did they were their votes the abstentions or for or against some of these so we're about to do the same thing which is if you don't want to vote on it publicly and you just want to allow me to ask these questions but I do think this is salient information and if this board gets into the habit of saying we don't want to know information well well I actually end up in deference to the people at the table there are some people who said they don't want

172to know and so if you don't want to know I think it's incumbent upon us to be willing to have all the information even if it's some information that another board member wants to know is it helps inform us it helps us be better policy makers and so all there's nothing here that is saying hey look I'm delving into a place I don't want to know this is related to the development of a curriculum that's been underway for a year to which we have not been privy and so if you want to as a meeting manager just say we're gonna turn it over as Miss McLaughlin said I will stipulate to that to save us time but I am not the one who allotted the time which was extremely limited for a year-long development of

173a curriculum and all of the work that staff has done and all of the work that the members of the volunteer community done I'm not aware that we do anything to that level and say well we're just not going to have sufficient time on our one work session to discuss it we usually have ample opportunity to have a fulsome discussion I have to go back it's not a go back I want to make I venture I just want to make this the motion formal because I already said it before miss Scheele spoke I'd like formal motion and have someone to consider second that Miss Schultz has questions be entered into the record and submitted over to dr. braver auntie you know and staff to work on they will report back to her if there's anything

174that they can't answer to it and any information he provides the rest of the world can see it in review as they desire okay I miss corporate Sanders miss Heinz is seconding my motion Oh miss I okay so we would we so ms mclaughlin under your motion these would not be next steps they would be questions submitted to dr. Bray brand and shared with the full board okay and you're seconding that motion miss Ines sure and okay so let's see how many could we dr. dr. Brennan and dr. B all I want to say is listen we've had two huge topics this morning that are huge community topics that I think it's been a very thoughtful conversation with the board at the very end I want to keep that positive collaborative momentum will be glam

175I'm supportive of this motion staff will be able to review it if there's something that we're not gonna have before that time I'm gonna be upfront with you and say I can't get it in that time or the amount of workload to get it at that time is too much and I would do so otherwise we'll be glad to review I just want to reiterate too if there are questions that occur to you after this meeting we're happy to follow up individually with board members in person or in writing so please you know make sure that you know you take advantage of that if there's anything that we can do to help you in preparation for the vote on June 14th miss Keith Kamara I'm sorry I had the wrong Karen yes that's okay I

176just want to clarify I I feel part of the reason I'm supporting miss McLaughlin is because I feel that I we really would be giving short shrift to what you're suggesting miss Schultz I from in many ways there I have so many questions about what you have up there I I don't because we didn't have an opportunity to have this as part of our discussion as I as I did with the other statement that we have already removed here I'm not clear on what you're asking and so I don't feel comfortable going through each one where I'm having a lot of questions and we haven't discussed it let's face I mean for me I have to face the reality of this I think we started discussing this around noon it is 2:30 and we haven't

177eaten lunch I can tell you I do not give you my best if I have not I mean that's just the bottom line so I think we do have a motion on the tan I will support them and I believe then I don't want to put words in your mouth miss McLaughlin but the the next step then would be to record the fact that board members it doesn't have to be just mrs. Johnson and mr. Wilson board members will submit questions for dr. Bray brand and staff to respond to would that be our next step then just to record that that's what we were doing aye my motion was there's 16 things up here it's just we're gonna vote for these 16 things are been provided by the board right they're being sent over to

178dr. Braverman and then obviously dr. Presidio has said anything that comes after they'll follow the same protocol right miss Haines okay so all right so let's let's take a vote on that how many people can support that approach how many people oppose that approach all right that's a majority so that's what we will do and with that I believe this meeting is adjourned this this work session rather is adjourned we will now go to lunch