Senate File 270 is on Monday’s agenda for the Education Committee meeting. The bill adds mental health awareness, coping skills and suicide prevention to the subject matter that must be included in the unit of health education, which school districts and accredited nonpublic schools must offer and teach in grades 9-12.
We told you about this bill after it advanced through subcommittee.
On its surface, the bill appears well-intentioned. But if one takes a step back, concern increases.
As conversation took place during Thursday’s subcommittee on the bill, alarms began to sound.
Jamie Burch of Planned Parenthood said the organization would be more than happy to work with providing curriculum.
The LGBTQ youth were highlighted as a group that would benefit from the new standards.
Republican Senators Jeff Edler and Tim Kraayenbrink supported the bill, as did Democrat Amanda Ragan, who said she’d like to see the bill apply to students at a younger grade level.
Nobody spoke against the bill.
But I was left pondering a few questions. Mental health issues are serious. Suicide prevention is serious. Learning to cope is serious.
None of those facts are up for debate. But here is what is.
It is not the role of the schools to discuss these issues. What is mental health? Who is mentally ill?
Those may sound like silly questions, but genuinely ask yourself those questions.
Just out of curiosity, do you think public schools are more likely to teach that a Christian has mental health issues or a transgendered person?
As for the desire to teach suicide prevention, why would Democrats support this?
Don’t they realize it is their party promoting suicide at the end of life? Why do is suicide painted as a “bad thing” in one case and an honorable thing in another?
Issues like this are why conservatives believe strongly the government shouldn’t have a role in education. Well, issues like this and the Constitution.
All of that said, these are issues that parents and children should deal with together. These are not issues that should be taught by schools.
The fact this bill applies to accredited nonpublic schools is an issue as well. Knowing what we know about the Left’s history in education, do we really want to allow this? Knowing that Planned Parenthood is eager to help provide curriculum for it, do we really want to allow this?
Is it possible for Planned Parenthood to provide acceptable curriculum on any of these issues for Christian schools?
Hard to imagine it could.
There’s no doubt someone needs to have conversations with kids about these issues. These are big issues. These could be life-saving conversations.
But they’re conversations that should happen at home, not at school.
The fact this bill was sponsored by a Republican (Sen. Charles Schneider) and passed by two Republicans already in subcommittee (Edler and Kraayenbrink) causes concern.
If you have similar reservations about this bill, you can contract the Republican senators on the Education Committee:
Amy Sinclair ([email protected])
Chris Cournoyer ([email protected])
Jerry Behn ([email protected])
Jeff Edler ([email protected])
Craig Johnson ([email protected])
Tim Kraayenbrink ([email protected])
Mark Lofgren ([email protected])
Ken Rozenboom ([email protected])
Annette Sweeney ([email protected])
Brad Zaun ([email protected])
