Parents in the Central DeWitt School District are expressing concern for the “education” children received in the 7th- and 8th-grade health and family consumer science classes.
They’ve started a petition online to encourage the school board to take action.
The petition states the psychological and sexual surveys, instruction and lessons include street terms for body parts, internet assignments, group work, sexual advertising and overly sexualized philosophy that are not age-appropriate for middle school children.
“For an educator to knowingly show pornographic images over and over to children for several years is a concern for many,” it states. “While we do support appropriate sexual health education in our schools, the instruction that has been going on in our district is not age-appropriate in the eyes of many parents.”
The petition cites Iowa Code 256.11 and 279.50 which mandate the curriculum uses materials “age-appropriate” and “research-based.”
“It also stated that parents will know what is being taught and be able to view materials prior to the course. This has not happened in our district for over four years. This is a violation of the law.”
Parents attempted to bring the issue to light at the June 21 board meeting but their concerns were “disregarded,” the petition says.
“It is truly concerning and disheartening to learn that our elected school board members seem to be unwilling to learn more about the details of our concerns or acknowledge that there are children who were victimized by the messaging they received within this classroom.
“Instead, parents were told, ‘quite frankly, kids are having sex these days, and kids are doing things we don’t want to think about. Let’s not put our heads in the sand and be all defiant about how our kids aren’t doing this and are perfect angels. Let’s be realistic. If they don’t feel comfortable coming home and talking about it, then there needs to be some different conversation about it at home. Maybe we need to look at ourselves in the mirror and not just our kids and not just our teachers.'”
The petition requests the Central DeWitt board to share how it will prevent past philosophies and ideals from entering the class again and give parent an opt-out of the class as a whole.
“We also ask that they communicate and be completely transparent with all parents of children who were exposed to any pornographic images or ideas that were not part of the Iowa Health Education Standards over the last four years.”
EXPLICIT WARNING: Vulgar images can be seen here. According to the petition, these are some of the images children were exposed to with some of the assignments.
