Rocky Mountain Voice is reporting on a challenge to the Roaring Fork Schools Board of Education over its use of the 3Rs, or “Rights, Respect, Responsibility,” sexuality curriculum. The challenge comes from the Alliance Defending Freedom, whose Center for Parental Rights sent the board a letter alleging that some of the material presented to very young children is graphic and inappropriate.
According to the Rocky Mountain Voice commentary, ADF says kindergarten materials include lessons identifying intimate body parts, illustrations in a presentation called “Understanding Our Bodies,” and instruction involving how children like to be touched. Those are allegations made in ADF’s letter, not findings handed down from Mount Sinai. That distinction matters.
But here is what matters even more: the school board should have no trouble answering the obvious questions. What exactly is being taught? Which lessons go to which grades? Who reviewed them? Who approved them? And who decided this material belonged in front of five-year-olds? Parents should not need a lawyer, a records request and a decoder ring to find out what their kindergartner is being taught.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Roaring Fork Schools is using the 3Rs sexuality curriculum. According to the article, the program stands for “Rights, Respect, Responsibility” and is designed as a comprehensive approach to sexuality education. Apparently kindergarten needed a comprehensive sexuality strategy before some kids have comprehensively mastered tying their shoes.
- ADF is challenging what it says appears in the kindergarten material. Its letter alleges that children are taught anatomical terms including nipples, vulva, penis and anus, accompanied by illustrations in a presentation titled “Understanding Our Bodies.” Again, that is ADF’s description. The board now gets the thrilling opportunity to respond with actual documents.
- The letter also objects to instruction concerning touch. ADF says teachers are expected to help kindergarten students determine “how they like to be touched.” If the district believes that language is being misrepresented, excellent. Put the lesson online, show parents the context and clear it up.
- This is ultimately a transparency problem before it is anything else. School officials should be able to produce a grade-by-grade scope and sequence, the actual classroom materials, the approval process and the names or positions of the people responsible for curriculum adoption. “Trust us” is not a curriculum policy.
- Parents are not meddling outsiders. They sent their five-year-olds to school to learn, grow and come home with construction-paper artwork stuck to their elbows. If a district wants to enter subjects touching sexuality, intimate anatomy and personal boundaries, parents have every right to know precisely where that line is being drawn before the lesson begins, not after somebody raises hell.
My Bottom Line
How do you look at allegations like these and not ask whether something has gone profoundly wrong?
If the ADF description is accurate, I have a very simple opinion: this is wrong. I would go further. Taking deeply intimate subjects that properly begin inside the family and deliberately pushing them downward into kindergarten is morally upside down. Call it sophisticated pedagogy, comprehensive health education or whatever phrase tested best with the consultants. Five-year-olds are still five-year-olds.
And before somebody starts hyperventilating about censorship, spare me. Asking a public school to show parents exactly what it teaches their children is not censorship. It is accountability. The district says this is age-appropriate? Fine. Show us. Put the kindergarten lesson beside the first-grade lesson, the fifth-grade lesson and the high-school lesson. Tell us who approved each one. Explain the educational purpose. Answer questions in public without hiding behind bureaucratic pudding words.
This is the arrogance that finally drives normal parents crazy. Government institutions are entrusted with our children, then too often behave as though parents are an irritating constituency to be managed after the professionals have decided what is “appropriate.” No. The state does not outrank mom and dad on childhood boundaries. If Roaring Fork officials believe this curriculum belongs in kindergarten, they should have the courage to put every page on the table and defend it in daylight. If they cannot do that, they have answered the question already.
Source: Rocky Mountain Voice
Now It's Your Turn...