Jennifer Heine-Withee and Julia Dawn Seaver, of SW Washington Parents’ Rights in Education, share their thoughts on Comprehensive Sexual Education and SB 5395
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are those of the author alone and do not reflect the editorial position of ClarkCountyToday.com
The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) has joined the activist movement. And they want your children to join them.
Last year, after Superintendent Reykdal asked the legislature to craft a bill (SB 5395) mandating Comprehensive Sex Ed (CSE) for every public school, OSPI joined the Sexual Education Policy Action Council (SEPAC), an arm of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) who just last fall changed their tagline to: Sex Ed for Social Change. SEPAC describes itself as “a movement of state and local advocates committed to and actively working to advance comprehensive sex education policy for their communities” and says they “will convene organizations, statewide coalitions, state agencies, and school districts…”
Part of this push is to actively recruit students, beginning in middle school, to act as advocates, peer educators, and activists. There are a vast number of organizations aiding in the effort, most of them promoted by OSPI. One of the big players is Advocates for Youth, creators of The 3 Rs, a free CSE curriculum (important because SB 5395 provided no funding for districts to purchase or create a curriculum) which includes lessons like having students prepare a presentation in order to lobby the principal to add policies regarding LGBT issues. The organization also holds trainings like last month’s Direct Action Training on how to plan a protest. And you don’t have to worry about your child being arrested because they have that covered with Jail Training Support. Then there’s the opportunity linked in last month’s OSPI newsletter for kids to join their Youth Abortion Support Collective because as they say, “We all need to become experts on how to get an abortion and how to connect other folks to abortion care. “
Then there’s Amaze, creators of animated videos including one on porn that has a female porn star floating skyward due to her overinflated breasts while her male co-star lassos her with his penis. OSPI’s website links to Amaze where that video is currently on the landing page. Some of their videos are featured in lessons from The 3Rs. Amaze recently advertised, including in OSPI’s monthly newsletter, for youth ambassadors ages 10-16 to be paid $50/month to watch their videos, participate in monthly meetings, and convince 3-5 friends to do the same.
Another opportunity is at Sexetc.org, also advertised in OSPI’s newsletter, where high school students up to age 19 write articles like “Great Sex-pectations” and “Anal Sex: From Stigma and Myths to Facts.”
Recruiting kids to educate other kids about sex is very popular. Planned Parenthood trains teens as part of their Teen Council, teaching sex ed in the classroom, writing, and lobbying legislators in Olympia. Another writing opportunity comes from Hookup, the name of a weekly info and advice text for teens from Teensource.org. A recent Hookup text explained the how-to’s of WSW (that’s women having sex with women for the uninitiated) and included instructions for a DIY dental dam. The author of the piece was a high school sophomore teen council member.
With all these extracurricular activities you might wonder how well students are doing with subjects like math and English. Not very. Just 60 percent of students are meeting the standards in English, 49 percent in math, and 47 percent in science.
Check out the links for yourself and if you think OSPI is out of line and believe schools should stick to academics and let parents instill values in their children, elect candidates who will respect parental rights and restore trust in our schools.
For more information, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/PRIESWWa/, www.informedparentsofwashington.com.
Submitted by SW Washington Parents’ Rights in Education and members Jennifer Heine-Withee and Julia Dawn Seaver. Heine-Withee and Seaver are also members of Informed Parents of Washington.
