On June 3, 2020, The New Jersey State Board of Education created new student learning standards for comprehensive health and physical education. This new curriculum is a revised form of the previous one that was adopted in 2014.
While this curriculum was created in 2020, schools were given until this past September to adopt the changes.
According to the state, the new Comprehensive Health and Physical Education were designed to address the needs of each student to gain knowledge and skills in caring for themselves and interacting effectively, respectfully and safely with others.
The new standards were adopted after five full months of discussions and public comments, but many people think that not enough public comments were heard. In some areas around our state, parents and school boards pushed against the adaption of the curriculum since it introduces sensitive topics to children at younger ages.
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While many different areas of learning how been revised with the new curriculum, it’s the gender and sex education portion that have caused a lot of comment and discussion among some school districts and parents in our state. In Linwood, Northfield and Somers Point, district officials describe a smoother transition then others and say they have been proactive about keeping parents informed on all new changes. Each district in our community has created their own curriculum based off the states and implemented the new standards into its teachings.
In the 2020 curriculum by the end of second grade all students will know that all living things may reproduce and are introduced to the scientific names for all genitals. By the end of fifth grade, students will know all the ways in which pregnancy can be achieved and occur. Between the grades of sixth and eight, students will learn about all the ways in which two people can have sex and by the end of eight grade, the students will have an awareness of every stage of pregnancy and conception.
In the sexual and social health portion of the curriculum, by the end of second grade, students will learn that everyone has their own unique skills and qualities which can include the activities they enjoy such as how they may dress, their mannerisms and things that they like to do. In grade five, the curriculum goes deeper into the children’s own sexual identity and discusses that all individuals should feel welcome and included regardless of their gender, gender expression, or sexual orientation. In order to promote that all are accepted, in eighth grade the students will learn that inclusive schools and communities are accepting of all people and will make them feel welcome and included.
Since the students will have the full knowledge of pregnancy and sex by the end of grade five, consent is a big discussion soon after. The curriculum requires instruction in grades 6 through 12 on the law and meaning of consent in all sexual activities.
One of the topics covered is sexting, which involves instructions on the social, emotional, and legal consequences of distributing and soliciting sexually explicit images through electronic means once during middle school. The curriculum also requires each school district to incorporate sexual abuse, assault awareness and prevention education in grades preschool through 12.
Along with all the content on sexual behavior and actions, the curriculum also covers mental health and the importance of knowing how to deal with one’s own emotions. The curriculum states, “A school district shall ensure that its health education programs for students in grades kindergarten through 12th recognize the multiple dimensions of health by including mental health and the relation of physical and mental health so as to enhance student understanding, attitudes, and behaviors that promote health, well-being, and human dignity.”
While many things within the curriculum have stayed the same from the previous years, it is the changes addressing sexual identity and the engaging in different sexual acts that has some parents questioning how their own local school districts will handle implementing these sensitive topics.
Because of this, each school district has an ‘opt-out’ option for their students. The parents that wish for their children not to be a part of these discussions must write a letter to the principal explaining that the lessons contradict with their personal values. It is up to each school district to decide what to do with the students who opted out.
An important aspect of the curriculum changes that should be highlighted is that local schools have leeway in how they implement and teach the new standards. In other words, the lectures and instruction will vary by schools. That's based on the NJ Department of Education allowing each school district throughout the state to have the freedom to tailor the overall curriculum for its own school.
However, the DOE will track how well each school districts meet the curriculum requirements through the New Jersey Quality Single Accountability Continuum (NJQSAC). Districts that don’t comply with the new standards may face loss of local control, monitoring from the state and in extreme cases, loss of state aid.
With that being said, different school districts are going about introducing these topics in different ways.
Northfield Community School has created its own Comprehensive Health and Physical Education Curriculum to go in accordance with the states. There are no new courses, teachers or instruction sessions being added. These new standards that the state expects the students to learn will simply be added in and taught by the health and physical education teachers during those class periods.
Superintendent Pete Bretones says that the district conducted a committee during the summer of 2022 to go over the new standards and discuss what its position on it would be.
“The district’s position is that we will deliver the mandatory standards in an age appropriate manner that benefits the education and well-being of the students. There was some resistance from some members of the community and we addressed them individually, as well as publicly," Bretones said.
In the new curriculum that was established by the district for the Northfield Community School, it states that, ‘We want to provide an intro to concepts but will rely on families to dive "deeper" as they see fit. We will introduce concepts age appropriately in "bite size" scientific portions which we will build upon to help connect the dots to tie it all in together.’
The hope is that by introducing the original state standards in smaller doses, parents and guardians can then address certain situations that they wish to, in further details at home.
While Bretones said that the number of students who have opted out of learning the new standards is very low, the district reminds parents of their right to do so and how to. For each student that does opt out, he says that an alternate assignment will be provided.
Superintendent Brian Pruitt says that the Linwood school district followed the curriculum implementation and instruction aligned to the NJSLS as required by the State and that they have implemented the new standards to all schools within the district.
“We communicated details about the new standards implementation and then formed a committee that reviewed the information,” Pruitt said. “The committee was composed of Health and PE staff, administration, BOE members, representatives from our PTO, Education Foundation, community and parent representatives. The group met multiple times and reviewed the curriculum update prior to the BOE approval of it.”
In order to hear concerns on the new curriculum or answer parent questions about how certain topics would be addressed in Linwood schools, the district communicated with the community through individual emails, phone calls, BOE meetings and staff throughout the whole development and implementation of new material. This allowed for plenty of communication and parent awareness of what was happening at each school in the district.
While this new curriculum is gathering a lot of buzz and comments from all over, Pruitt says that Linwood’s health curriculum, "has always been about assisting and supporting the young kids as they grow and that will continue to be the main focus."
Somers Point school district was unavailable for comment at the time of print.
