Q&A
Curriculum development and standardization for sexual health education
0:45:28
·
133 sec
Council Member Rita Joseph inquires about the process of developing and standardizing the sexual health education curriculum. Key points from the DOE representatives' responses:
- A K-12 health education scope and sequence outlines key topics and progression
- Based on state and national standards, including National Sex Education Standards
- Teachers plan courses based on this citywide standard scope and sequence
- DOE recommends vetted, high-quality curricula that are skills-based, medically accurate, age-appropriate, and inclusive
- Schools may choose to use curricula other than what's recommended, with few exceptions
- Non-recommended curricula are approved at the school level
- The scope and sequence includes recommended lessons for sexual health (e.g., 20 out of 70-80 lessons in middle school)
- DOE provides training on both general health education and specific recommended curricula
- Curriculum choice allows for flexibility given the diversity of school communities and student needs
Rita Joseph
0:45:28
How is the curriculum for sexual health education put together?
0:45:31
Is it centralized, or does it vary from school to school, school teacher?
0:45:36
How is that?
Narrator in Shown Video
0:45:37
Yeah.
0:45:37
I can I can talk a little more about that?
0:45:39
So, as Despina mentioned in her testimony, we have a k to 12 health education scope and sequence, which outlines the key topics or the scope and the logical progression or the sequence of the essential health knowledge, skills, and behaviors that students should learn at each grade level.
0:45:55
This is based on state and national instructional standards, including the National Sex Education Standards, and it aligns with, you know, our policies and the state policies.
0:46:04
So teachers are expected to plan their health education course based on this scope and sequence, which is standard across the city, and it includes a number of recommended lessons.
0:46:13
So for sexual health, for example, in the middle school, there's 20 lessons out of the overall 70 to 80 or so that are recommended, and the same at the high school level.
0:46:22
To help schools provide high quality health ed, we also recommend curricula that we have, vetted through the extensive review process that that Despina shared earlier, which includes the sexual health education curricula.
0:46:34
So, these are lessons that are skills based, medically accurate, age appropriate, and inclusive, and we're constantly reviewing to make sure that there you know, if there's any updates to new information or updates to new practices that we know would be more beneficial to our students that we can make those updates.
0:46:51
Schools may choose to use curriculum other than what we recommend.
0:46:55
You know, with with few exceptions, we don't mandate curricula in in any subject area.
0:47:00
Given the diversity of the school communities and the range of needs of our students, we think that that is a decision that makes the most sense for a school community to decide.
0:47:09
That said, we do know that many schools do use and and, and attend training on our curriculum.
0:47:16
So our our trainings are, you know, both both general about health education and specifically how to use our curriculum.
0:47:22
And so, given the number of people that have attended the trainings, we know that that there is you know, there there are a lot of teachers who are using the recommended curriculum, but it's not mandated.
Rita Joseph
0:47:33
And then when they don't use the recommended curriculum, where is that curriculum approved by someone?
0:47:39
Or
Narrator in Shown Video
0:47:40
That would be at the school level.
Rita Joseph
0:47:41
On the administration?
