Several local groups who previously sued Montgomery County Public Schools over its sex education curriculum are again trying to keep lessons on homosexuality out of the classrooms.
In an appeal filed Wednesday, Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, and the Family Leader Network jointly asked the Maryland State Board of Education to reverse the county Board of Education’s approval of the new curriculum.
At issue are two, 45-minute lessons for eighth- and 10th-graders that are designed to teach tolerance when it comes to sexual orientation. School administrators are working on alternate lessons for those students whose parents don’t want them to be included.
CRC attorney John Garza said the goal of the appeal is to prevent recently approved material from being field-tested in schools, which is set to happen this spring.
The filing contends that certain viewpoints — such as the possibility of being an ex-gay — are left out.
“That’s one other orientation they refuse to acknowledge,” Garza said. “We don’t want to tell kids that whatever orientation they choose; they’re stuck.”
Montgomery County school spokesman Brian Edwards would only tell The Examiner that the district’s attorneys were reviewing the documents.
Several members of the committee who worked on the material have told The Examiner that the lessons are medically sound.
David Fishback, a member of the Parents, Friends and Families of Lesbians and Gays, called the process “excruciatingly fair.”
“There is nothing legally suspect in basing a health curriculum on the wisdom of the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and American Psychiatric Association, and the American Psychological Association,” Fishback wrote in an e-mail.
Appeals to the state education board are allowed within 30 days of county decisions. In this case, Montgomery County school board members approved the sex ed lessons on Jan. 9.
William Reinhard, spokesman for Maryland’s Department of Education, said the state board quickly will send a notice to Montgomery County about the filing and that the county must respond within 20 days.
From there, Reinhard said, the case could be dropped, go to a hearing or be passed on to federal court.
