001okay I'm going to bring this work session to order we can try to make up some time here okay welcome to part two of the instruction work session in which we'll be talking about the Family Life education curriculum advisory committee recommendations welcome back to Dr prido I will ask him to introduce staff and other guests and uh make the presentation on the executive summary and then we'll open it up to questions and comments all right thank you Miss Rita the uh presentation will be very brief I know that we're running over and I know that you'll probably have questions about this topic but I would like to uh I would like to note that uh we're here today with the recommendations from the family life uh education advisory committee oh well you know what that
002that is not a problem because that breeze feels excellent that is a small price to pay oh my goodness I literally was in the hot seat for the last two hours so it was something else yes yes okay but uh very briefly just by way of introduction I I just want to um let you know that we've been working as a committee uh over the course of the past year to review the entire family life education program but actually some of the objectives and lesson objectives the committee's been working on for about two years that you're going to see today so I'm going to go ahead and introduce Liz Payne who has been facilitating our uh committee work this year and she's our coordinator for health and PE as you know and I'd also like
003to introduce you to Jason Morgan who is the parliamentarian for the committee and he's been here with us all afternoon waiting patiently so I want to thank him for being involved in the presentation today so Liz will give you the high level overview and then we'll go straight to questions thank you Dr Presidio good afternoon everyone um again to give a little bit of background the committee had six me meetings two of which they spent in small group discussions on all the topics in life education program we they had did some small group discussion large group we had individual feedback forms to get their input about what what their thoughts were about the curriculum then the next meeting they spent looking at the overlap with the revised General Health standards of learning and our family
004life education program as noted the revisions to the General Health standards of learning now include things in the emotional social mental health area that we have traditionally had in Family Life Education so in the document as you see strikeouts and notations of the full report um those items now will still be instructed but considered nonfamily Life Education meaning that they don't carry an opt out option they will be instructed within the General Health curriculum um things such as uh based on relationships U mental health suicide depression those topics will will no longer be opted out of so to speak um the additional topics that were added after we went through all that uh the committee went through the parliamentarian process to look at every grade level one by one um to look at those overlaps
005and to look at any additional things or scaffolding items that they wanted to add to the curriculum so the first bullet notation of the uh development of individual identity includes sexual orientation General G gender identity added to grade 7 8 that actually began his discussion two years ago last school year with a committee looking at the you survey results in this area srnr language that we have U for students and we had a school psychologist come to the meeting last year so we had begun that discussion last year um and started developing objectives at the seventh and eth grade level it is currently in our n9th and 10th grade level um and that remains unchanged in addition we added uh more emphasis on sexual assault and sexual consent at grade levels uh sexual assault had
006been included in our 10th grade curriculum but now being in the objective shows more explicit instruction in 11th grade we did add additional topics of Contra uh contraception and Dating Violence um that curriculum was at one time listed to STI um and and um HIV and AIDS education and now uh adding those two additional things I could go through the rest of the bullet points but I think the the next big thing that we're working on is parent access to the lessons we are working with our it Department to develop a module in Blackboard similar to way the way that the Emergency Care information is handled so that we could post lessons for parents in a way that the parents can access them but students cannot um and talking with they they said the module
007is ready but they hit some glitch about access to other components that they want to limit the access so they are working with Blackboard on that I am extremely hopeful that that that will be ready by the end of uh the summer but I I'm not they're not clear yet on when they can get that worked out so we're hoping to do that right now all of the lessons in media are available at all the schools so just reiterate our school board process um following this work session with any additional recommendations or changes uh we will be a new business item and that new business item is followed by 30-day Community review because this is all Word document uh lesson objectives this will go up for 30-day Community review on the website the regular fle
008website that they parents access to get opt out forms and more information those comments will be collected through an email and will be shared with the school board at the end of the June 19th conclusion of that Community review and then provided to the board for their consideration in their uh in the action item on June 25th if I might add a couple of things I think the most recent recommendation that we've received at least since I've been here from Fleet clack was um the sex trafficking curriculum yes ma'am and you all went through the similar process to to gather uh parent uh input uh with regard to that content if I recall um the the fact that some of this is coming up now is is just coincidental it has nothing to do with
009the policy change that the board uh had before them last week it's just a matter of the way that your the committee does their work they would typically bring their recommendations to the board in in this may time frame um and um it just happened that it you know just kind of worked this way a little bit coincidental uh with regard to some of this overlapping in terms of content um assum ass uming this moves forward and is adopted by the board uh after the 30-day review period um it I believe you indicated it would probably take a year to get the materials developed and implemented is that correct yes ma'am for any of the new objectives um things that we've added content to it's probably going to take a year because we've had revisions
010for health fiscal education and driver education staff can't handle everything so in some grade levels especially in lower grade levels where we just re if if approved we would just remove the fle tag from some of the lessons the lessons are done there they meet our new General Health s sols that's a simple fix but many of these others I don't believe we're going to get all of the secondary 7 through 12 completed U we would certainly um let parents know through the opt out forms and those things but I'm fairly confident that we're not going to get that done until the next year so full implementation of these if approved first secondary special would be fall of 2016 thank you thank you for that very concise summary it's very helpful I have Mr Moon
011followed by Mrs Schultz just a one quick question uh you know most of the recommendations had unanimous support from those are voting uh but they were couple with the one person objecting or not supporting the recommendations could you possibly elaborate what the objections were yes sir um I all committee members were strongly encouraged to connect with their school board members to ensure that they shared the work and to talk about their thoughts and feelings um around these recommendations while I don't want you know like to speak for other people my inference is in our conversations it was more about the grade level pece with the sexual tion gender identity because there was unanimous votes with n9th and 10th grade okay that's that's how I saw it okay thank you Mrs Schulz Well I this is
012going to be no shock I I'm really I'm stunned um at the level of um swath of recommendation about um compelling um children for things that were previously um within a parental rights discretion um to choose um and as a parent who has regularly taken advantage of opt out what was the basis what was the degree of community engagement that you did with parents and and for what basis because one of the things that I've asked for all along and in my tenure on the board it's become more difficult to opt out we used to send home an opt out form to parents and now we make parents seek out the form and print out the form and then we tell them when it's back to school time when you're going to enroll when you're
013getting lockers when you're getting forms they'll have the forms there it's not true there are no forms there and they they scramble so I I mean what what would be the basis for us um eliminating more parental rights and parental discretion over much of this um so that's the first question so are um if I could a followup question are you referring to things that we struck out the things so you said all the things that were struck out are no longer at the option of the parents you are incorporating that into the curriculum and the parents no longer have a choice because they now align to the new General Health standards of learning they they now meet those the state standards right but what but we start at kindergarten or wherever these strikeouts start
014and they're substantial and so why are we in a position um to tell parents no longer have the right on what formally was your right so say say you've got a parent who has you know I don't know um a junior in high school an eighth grader in middle school and a first grader that your Junior and your eighth grader were able to be opted out but you're first grader you have no choice anymore and that would be because the General Health standards of learning cannot be opted out of so this is now required instruction under the standard state so the state government is compelling parents to have their children learn things that previously were within a parental a parental right discretion to opt out of I mean that's what the whole Community view process
015is for as well so we can so that's number one number two the fact that we are even contemplating the gender identity within 48 business hours of the vote vot I cannot believe we're going here because we are going to pay the price because we just told everybody nothing will happen nothing will happen nothing will happen and on the second full business day after we took that vote we are contemplating adding gender identity directly into and discussions around um this and we can explain away all we want that this is a state standard but if the state is compelling our children to learn about gender identity then where was that discussion and where have we advised the public that now that becomes a compelled part of your children's education so this that these two topics
016the sexual orientation gender identity as we mentioned earlier began that conversation last year and there were two objectives that we were going to bring forward last year however because of the changes that were coming from the health standards revision we felt it was prudent to hold on to those and bring they were your objectives for what for what purpose whose objectives bring the bring objectives forward from the committee last year on this topic for but why was it an objective of the committee well the sexual orientation gender identity piece had been a discussion about whether or not to add it to sth and eth grade we looked at the you survey results showing that students who are identified as something other than heterosexual were at high risk for a lot of RIS risky but but
017you're saying it was the committee's decision to take this on yes ma'am so this isn't compelled by the state this was appointees appointees to the individual committee that made it their business to put this on the agenda yes ma'am okay so um I the the state pce had to do with notific that's those are two separate I just want to make be clear about that I think we're mixing up two different answers no no no I'm I I get that wherever it's been struck we're now saying formerly parents had a right and now the state is telling us you no longer have the right to opt your children out of that you're going to be taught that even though you may have had older children go through the system you now no longer have the
018option so the state government's going to compel it and then on this other we're hearing that it's been the committee's work all along not compelled by federal not compelled by state but it's been the committee's work all along to ensure this got on our agenda Miss Smith has a clarifying question um when I look at the bigger report and I had this question so I thought it was clear but I'm I'm be closer um in like when I look at page 16 that's what it shows on on my thing of uh the the full report and it says recommended lesson objectives for grade seven emotional and social health but then when it says in the note lesson objectives 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.6 and 7.7 will continue to be included in the emotional and social health
019unit however these objectives no will no longer be considered Family Life Education instruction but 7.1 is not listed in that what is 7.1 considered then do you understand my question oh yes ma'am uh it's the original strikeout so the original 7.1 was struck out and replaced by a new 7.1 that's why it's not listed so that's a place where we just replaced it with a different so that is considered part of the General Health standards from the state or that's 7.1 is considered an fle piece 7.1 is considered fle but but has been revised and it was revised so much we just made it a new objective so my question is 7.1 is still part of what parents can opt out of if they want to it's not considered that's the verification it's not considered
020part of the instruction that is now General Health standards correct that's why the note States lesson objective 7.2 but miss fth that doesn't go to my point my point is is that when you look at the substantive amount of um documentation here that struck out that previously was considered within the purview of parents and that parents had a Latitude by lesson so they may they may choose 90% of it but there may be one or two lesson plans where they say no that is within my perview within my values as a parent to have that discussion in my own home and now what we're saying is that's no longer family life it's compulsory education and you're going to have to learn it no matter what and for example I'm talking about 8.5 8.5 goes directly
021into eighth graders talking about sexual orientation and gender identity we're not even into high school yet and so now things that and no don't shake your head I know exactly what you're say 8.5 isn't listed as a as an emotional and social health unit no 8.5 is not struck out for I know it's not struck out but my point is is that that is now added and so now we have had a very clear delineation in the past that you got a lesson plan so now some things are going to be tucked into the curriculum over here that formerly we knew and now you're going to have to peac meal and we've moved down to Middle School talking about gender identity and yes that's still opt out but a parent now not going to know
022that oh oh by the way 40 50 60 70 % of what you're what you formally had a right to as a parent to discuss and and choose whether or not you were going to have that curriculum delivered to your child within the public school system or not you now have to find what that is and now are we compelling parents okay well you know what are we going to drive parents out of our our school system over having to hunt and Peck and find and choose where what you to be the fle curriculum is now is partially tucked over here in the regular curriculum and then you hunt and Peck through the rest of it and you may have options uh in certain circumstances and we're right here at um and and this is
023the the essence of the conversation from Thursday we've already identified and Mr mine I would I would appreciate some respect really honestly I'm sorry I'm honestly you know what I I provide Ed a a a great de amount of cover for you on Thursday and I would appreciate the same respect so um that we're already talking about discussing gender identity not as a part of the state so some of it we've moved over into the curriculum because it's state and some of it we're leaving here but this is not compelled by the state so this we we have we have we have leapt into the depth and murky water immediately and the backlash is going to be severe and I am very very worried that we're taking this up right now m i just uh
024do Dr Presidio I just want to make sure that um we have Clarity for the board as I understand it all of this um that Liz Payne has brought to us is because our our appointees to the Family Life Education have been working on this if we're upset with any or all of our appointees because they elected to bring this as part of their um research work and recommendations then that's that's what the 12 of us have to um wrestle with and have the conversation with one another and making the overall decision correct I mean as I understand it um you're just simply here to let us know on behalf of the committee is the liaison this is the work they've done these are the recommendations they're bringing if you if you as a board
025individually or collectively don't like these recommendations that's what the work session's for so miss Schultz I do understand uh I do think it's important though just to note it it is um very much a coincidence because I talked to my appointee to F and it's something they've been talking about as you mentioned for at least a year now last year and this year yeah so um Miss Schultz is there anything you wanted to add right now okay okay any other board members have count Miss Strauss in my read of this it looks to me as though anything dealing with um sexual behaviors biological sex anything at all it Still Remains an fle and parents cannot doubt yes ma'am and um I'm looking at more sort of character good positive character development which is basically what
026we have in all of our schools it looks to me as though those pieces are the ones that are now a part of sort of healthy life practices yes ma'am so I don't know whether or not in order to facilitate those parents who um might be frustrated that they are don't exactly know where it is that they want to opt out is it possible for us to indicate um these are the grades and areas where a certain amount of discussion may take place having to do with um reproduction s sexuality etc etc so that parents know where that is is that possible to facilitate that so they're not upset yes ma'am and and that's one of the reasons we want to get the lessons posted in such a way that parents can access them so
027it's very clear it's not only just looking at the lesson objectives but they have access to those lessons as well we do understand there's going to have to be a communication process around this to ensure that parents are aware of what's happening right so parents who have concerns in those areas will be able to easily find out where it is so they are alerted and if they don't want their child to be a part of that so that they will know and can opt out yes ma'am thank you Miss Hines um yeah I'm sorry sorry I missed part of the meeting but I'm just from looking through this before it looks like even though there were some changes made none of this looks like it was controversial to the committee because and I see in
028all the recommendations there's only one no vote on anything most of them were um unanimous votes for the changes that were made right is that correct okay thank you other board members comments or questions M mlin so in light of um recent board um actions and discussion I I do think it's important that uh we have as much Clarity in uh what's being presented at this work session so if I understand what Miss Strauss is trying to say um and maybe going back to miss Schultz what you were raising the concerns around this topic parents still do have the right to opt out so I guess maybe my question goes back to miss Schultz which area is it your understanding that they don't they can't opt out of well anything that's not a strikeout they
029can opt out of but the problem is is that all the strikeouts have now been embedded in the curriculum and the parents will no longer have a choice on all of the strikeouts for the move over so now we're sort of bifurcating what was previously an fle curriculum and parents aren't going to know what used to be an OP out and is now embedded so you're saying that this what was moved out of F and now moved over over to health and the health instruction correct correct okay and is there when you look at what's being moved over to the health curriculum just to help all of us as a board are there areas that you're looking at and saying I think that could present a problem for our families yes and would yes and
030and it's not surprising that there was one committee vote against it so so there we go is that that a committee of appointees of this board are going to vote like this board is not a shock but uh I I think maybe you're trying to understand if there are particular topics that you as a board May recommend to remain in fle as opposed to be moving to General Health why can't we leave it all in fle and that is certainly up up to the board to consider I I think what would be helpful is to be able to identify which which areas were moved over to the health curriculum that like if there's specific areas that you had concerns I think doing this on I I think doing this magnitude of work where you're taking
031what are longstanding historical topics that have always been within a a parental right area and moving them out and putting them in embedding them in the curriculum and telling parents you no longer have the choice without doing public engagement will yield us just as much if not more um uh uh trust issues with the public and that anything of this magnitude if we're going to move it over and it's not going to be ready for a year anyway let's do a public engagement piece and find out not what one individual member that was appointed by each of us feels but what the public who this will uh ultimately impact what the public feels okay so that's definitely uh proposal for the board to consider with this work session uh Miss Smith you indicated you wanted
032to speak okay um part of this process is the 30-day period for the community to provide feedback and typically staff then has um provided that information to the board about what the community feedback is I figured that will continue to be part of the process to me that's our community engagement piece and I would not support doing something else um before I do go backs does anybody else want to speak um I'll take a quick turn before go back and um Miss um since we're talking about this specifically how have we notified parents of the opportunity to provide us input I can't remember from last year yeah that was actually one of my questions I'm Sorry Miss Reed I just I thought since it was a kind of a um kind of a continuation Miss
033Miss comments we uh go through dcco and put something in the my FCPS family now and we also do a kit message to take them to the website to provide comments so I yeah I suggest in this particular case we might overc communicate just to make sure that everybody's aware of these proposed changes uh so so nobody is caught by surprise U that was my first comment and secondly I just wanted to understand again um the issues of associated with sexual orientation and gender identity did I hear you say that they were already in the 9th and 10th curriculum but now it's a proposal to bring it also down to seven and eight did I hear that yes ma'am so it's already been in our I'm saying it again just yes ma'am in our ninth
034and 10th grade curriculum yes ma'am okay I I'm certain that there are a lot of people that didn't know that so um so this is a very good and helpful discussion so what you're saying is that the committee then is saying because of I'm just now reiterating what you said because of the youth survey that you felt it was important that the younger age kids begin to have this education right yes ma'am and we require students who srnr for the in the sexual harassment piece not to harass based on these things um and working with uh Department of special services with the OCR presentation that all students had to look at they also felt that students truly did not have instruction on what these terms mean uh and felt strongly that it was important okay
035and and lastly my question is more about the process if you all could comment on um how the meetings went um you know were they um constructive you know were people throwing rocks at each other and screaming I mean what kind of um what kind of meetings how would you describe these meetings well I'll have Mr Morgan answer that if he's okay with that yes Miss pay I can speak to the process U my role as the parliamentarian for the committee was to help them ensure that they had Fair effective efficient meetings and what I observed was these were very open meetings the no these were not rubber stamp meetings everyone was able to participate and in fact I think everyone participated extensively diverse viewpoints were expressed and a lot of the results are the
036results of of very nuanced compromises that yes the the final outcomes were largely uh largely non-controversial however those that was because they put a lot of effort into discussing in finding out what it is they felt the the would reflect the Community Values at large and to the were there courageous conversations yes ma'am thank you okay quick gobs and then we're going to finish up here by 4:30 so that we can start facilities 30 minutes late Miss straussa by Miss mlin I was just going to comment on on some of the areas that are now um uh may not that are being proposed not to be a part of Family Life Education as I'm reading through them carefully most of them really line up very well with our Behavior pos positive supports and sort of
037the other pieces of the curriculum that are routine in all of our classrooms and I'm looking at a kindergarten one that talks about students will identify ways an individual's Behavior may affect others and it talks about good manners being respectful uh and it does add not sharing your name on the Internet and these clearly have nothing to do with sexual behavior at all and it really has to do with appropriate manners and positive behaviors in classrooms so that we have order we also found alignment with social studies with discussion of community and what a community is in kindergarten first grade right but again putting it out to the community for a 30-day period if some you know if if parents have a lot of objection to talking about good manners and respect and things like
038that we need to know thanks thank you Miss mlan for the final word so I I think um what Miss Reed was asking Dr Payne to speak to is the fact that some of the the content it was actually just a matter of was it being taught at 10th grade and now bringing it down to was it e8th grade Dr Payne or seventh grade seventh seventh and eth the point being that if we don't get the information in front of students um in time then we miss that window so as I understood part of the issue of moving some things down from 10th grade to seventh and e8th grade was more about definitions just making sure kids understood what what things are because they're facing it in seventh and eighth grade and if we wait
039till 10th grade uh we run the risk that as an educational institution we didn't educate them in time and uh so I I do understand um how important it is for our public to feel that uh beyond our advisory committee um that they can also speak to us so I'm in full support of what Miss Reed said let's overcommunication uh and you know we we are fortunate that what we're talking about is the actual issues that will be taught but then the curriculum and how it's going to be presented that's going to be another year so the community continue to also be part of the dialogue it's not happening immediately this coming fall and so that I think gives us time as a school system to continue to have families um have their awareness made
040made about um the content we're delivering and their their comfort level with that thank you okay with that this work session is adjourned thank you very much we didn't have any specific next steps I don't believe no okay to over communicate where is let's see Jeff thank you thanks for coming thank you all right we're going to be moving on to our uh final work session on facilities uh we'll be taking a quick break as we um set up for for the next presentation so it'll be 5 minute break