Members of a committee formed to revamp Montgomery County’s sex education curriculum this week got their first glimpse at a tamer, much more clinical lesson on how to use a condom that’s being considered for 10th–graders.
At the group’s first meeting since school faculty came up with proposed curriculum, teacher Betsy Brown went through a sample class, reading from a carefully planned script while discussing such topics as pregnancy and STDs.
“The teacher can answer questions using materials in the packet,” she said Wednesday night. “We’re keeping this as businesslike as possible, almost clinical.”
The caution stems from a lawsuit filed last year against Montgomery County Schools over several soon-to-be-released sex ed teachings.
Now the committee — which was assembled in response to the lawsuit settlement — is going piece by piece through potentially controversial lessons, with the one on condoms up first.
The basic information 10th–graders will receive is that abstinence is the only way of preventing both disease and pregnancy. But there is also a video that instructs how to put on and dispose of a condom.
The video was the component of the lesson parents present said they worried would be the most problematic. But most, including the president of Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, the group that sued the school district, said they were pleasantly surprised.
Rather than making light of sex with demos featuring oversized cucumbers, the eight-minute-long DVD repeatedly gave practical steps in a serious, easy-to-understand tone, Michelle Turner said.
“This is vastly improved — it’s direct; it’s to the point,” she noted. “Before there was a greater emphasis on being sexually active; the abstinence was an afterthought.”
The lesson is far from approved at this point. In two weeks, the committee willreconvene to take suggestions and then approve a final curriculum set.
