This past summer, as students were released into the heat of summer, into weeks at art and soccer camp, into weekends down the shore, school districts began a mad scramble. You see, back in 2020, my home state of New Jersey had adopted the updated Student Learning Standards for Comprehensive Health and Physical Education. Those new standards are due for implementation this school year.
Here’s the thing. Shortly after those updated standards were adopted, we all got distracted by a worldwide pandemic, which led to school closures and hybrid schedules and remote learning and an uproar over whether mask mandates for teachers and students should exist.
It was a lot.
So, districts could perhaps be forgiven for waiting until the last moment to update their health education curricula in order to align with the updated standards.
But now they’re rushing things to meet a fast-approaching deadline and, as attention has shifted back toward inclusiveness in education, sex ed opponents have shown themselves to be highly displeased.