Jacob Dimond / jake@yelmonline.com
During a Yelm Community Schools (YCS) board of directors meeting on Thursday, Oct. 23, Dr. Lisa Cadero-Smith, assistant superintendent, announced that a committee would be engaging in a comprehensive review of sexual health education within the district at the elementary, middle school and high school levels.
In the past year, according to Cadero-Smith, parents within the YCS community have raised questions about the sexual health education being taught within the district.
“We recognize this is a very sensitive topic for our families, and our families have always had the opportunity to opt out of this curriculum,” Cadero-Smith said. “It is the one curriculum you can opt out of entirely, and that includes opting out in its entirety or opting out of portions of it. Parents also have the opportunity to review the curriculum ahead of time so they know exactly what they would be opting out of.”
Cadero-Smith added that parents who were unhappy with the content in the sexual health education courses engaged in a process known to parents as a “reconsideration of materials.” With the reconsideration of materials, a committee will comprehensively review the sex-ed courses at YCS elementary schools, at Ridgeline and Yelm middle schools, and at Yelm High School.
“Our complaint came forth at the middle school level, but we’re actually going to do a comprehensive review across elementary, middle school and the high school,” Cadero-Smith said. “Beginning next month, we’ll engage the middle school process. In January and February, we’ll look at our high school curriculum. Then, we’ll actually be doing a full adoption — a renewed adoption — which is fifth grade. That particular curriculum is cycling out.”
Cadero-Smith added that there will be more OSPI-recommended educational options available for the committee to choose from during the comprehensive review of sexual health education within YCS. She noted the district currently uses material called “Family Life and Sexual Health,” and claimed it’s one of the oldest sexual education courses available to the district.
“I would just simply say, this topic is important to us,” Cadero-Smith said. “We know it’s important to our families, and we will be including a committee that has administrators, teachers and parents and community members who will help us look at the state standards, instructional materials and then make some recommendations to all of you.”
Superintendent Chris Woods, earlier in the meeting before Cadero-Smith presented, told audience members that two school board meetings ago there was a claim that YCS enrollment is declining because of what it is teaching students.
“The claim was the things we’re teaching our kids are causing them to leave our schools, when Yelm is a district that hasn’t changed what they’re teaching since these policies came into effect — which I talked about at the last board meeting, which were required by state,” Woods said. “As a matter of fact, our staff do not like teaching this content area because it is so controversial, and because they’re very uncomfortable teaching it because a lot of families have a lot of opinions about this content. One of the things we’re doing is allowing folks to opt out to any of our instruction. We’re also trying to be really transparent about what it is we’re teaching. We had very few people opt out of this content area last year.”
He added, each year within YCS, sexual health educational material is a topic of discussion. Woods said there are some families who believe the district is not teaching enough in the sexual education subject, while there are other families who believe the district is “talking too much” and that it “should be left to the families at home.”
“We try to do a very good job of just following the letter of the law, and not doing more than what the letter of the law requires,” Woods said. “We take this very seriously. We also take very seriously what our community believes we should be and not be teaching in schools. It’s a fine line, and unfortunately, you will never get it completely right because there will always be people that disagree. Districts are put in a challenging spot to try and navigate this. We’re going to do that with a very open process, having people come in, take a look at it and help us (make) the decisions.”
