Last year, the residents of Battle Ground told the Battle Ground School Board that they did not want the FLASH (Family Life and Sexual Health) curriculum to be adopted for the high schools.
The district asked Battle Ground residents to answer a questionnaire about sex education. In the results, any question that could be interpreted in a way that would discourage teens from engaging in sex received a high percentage answering “cover the subject in depth,” whereas any question that had to do with gender received a high percentage answering “not covered.”
Parents were also asked which subject they would most likely opt their child out of, and overwhelmingly it was the subjects dealing with gender.
So, what did school administrators do?
They put together a comprehensive sexual education curriculum consisting of a large portion from FLASH with an entire section on gender. In fact, the new curriculum contains more FLASH material than was in the proposed curriculum from June of 2018.
The Battle Ground administration doesn’t seem to get that the parents said in no uncertain terms “NO FLASH!”
We don’t want our children being taught that “a person knows their gender identity because they feel like a boy, a girl, both, neither or somewhere in between,” or our precious daughters being referred to as “a person with ovaries and a uterus.”
We resent our children being told that, “in the state of Washington children can get birth control and abortions without parental permission and that Washington state birth control insurance will pay for it.”
It is irresponsible to teach teenagers that the withdrawal method is “free, always available, more effective than most people think” and “is very effective for people who can tell when they’re about to ejaculate.”
We don’t want our kids having to practice putting on condoms, and we cringe to think that as a part of sex education class they may be participating in role playing. If a child who has suffered from abuse is made to be in a class where they are role playing scenarios dealing with sex, this could trigger past abuse and be detrimental to that child. FLASH claims to be age appropriate and scientifically accurate. Is it age appropriate to teach 14- and 15-year-old kids about anal and oral sex, flavored condoms or dental dams? Or describing in depth “the sexual response system, desire, arousal, release?” As far as medically accurate information, FLASH claims that “abortion is the most common medical procedure performed in the U.S.” According to Johns Hopkins University, it didn’t even make the top 10.
FLASH provides no statistics for effectiveness of any birth control, just a bunch of feel good words like “works pretty pretty good” or “one of the best.”
On Monday, Oct. 14 at 6 p.m. at Lewisville Middle School, the school board will hear testimony about the new curriculum. We want our kids taught what is based in science, not agenda driven. Parents need to stand up and say “No CSE! No FLASH!”
