In canceling textbook, Miami-Dade School Board fails to leave sex-ed up to the professionals | Opinion

The Miami-Dade School Board showed its true colors Wednesday when it voted to reverse its decision to adopt a new sex-education textbook for the 2022-23 school year. The decision to remove the textbook leaves the district without any sex-education curriculum for at least four to eight months, according to a Miami Herald story.

Never mind the fact that Miami-Dade has one of the highest rates of HIV diagnoses in the country. Forget the overwhelming data that show how a comprehensive sex education helps prevent sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy, reduce relationship violence and prevent child sex abuse.

When a minority group of conservative parents in Miami-Dade wants to remove an already vetted textbook from the entire school district — the fourth largest in the country — their demands are met, no questions asked.

But let’s look at the facts: There were 278 signatures on a petition objecting to material found in the new sex education textbook, “Comprehensive Health Skills,” which the School Board adopted in April after a lengthy and transparent adoption process. There are 334,00 students in the district.

The district took these complaints seriously — as it should — and Schools Superintendent José Dotres selected a hearing officer to conduct a public hearing to review the concerns. After reviewing all of the evidence, the officer made this recommendation: Deny the petitions and continue with the textbook adoption process.

Despite all of this, a majority of School Board members voted to cancel the only curriculum students have to teach them about things like consent, contraception and how to protect themselves against sexual abuse. It’s a slap in the face to young people in Miami-Dade County, and it underestimates them, too. They deserve better.

The community speaks up

During an emotional public-comment period before the vote, sex-ed advocates, high school graduates, parents, health professionals and members of social-justice organizations such as Power U stepped up to the mic, one by one, to make their case for why board members should vote to keep the book.

As a former teacher, I was particularly moved by those students who took time out of their summer vacation to speak up for their own education. They were young people begging for age-appropriate information, for guidance on issues that will affect their mental and physical health for the rest of their lives. Yet, board members Christi Fraga — who, in April, voted to approve the textbook — Lubby Navarro, Marta Perez, Mari Tere Rojas and Chairwoman Perla Tabares Hantman decided to, instead, protect the interests of a few parents who are part of a less than 1-year-old group called County Citizens Defending Freedom (CCDF).

Although the director of CCDF Miami Chapter, Alex Serrano, doesn’t have children in the school district, he told the Miami Herald that he doesn’t want his children’s peers being “indoctrinated with ideology” found in instructional materials. Among the group’s objections are sections informing students on emergency contraceptive methods and discussions about gender and biological sex. They are disturbed by a section on “skills for seeking sexual healthcare,” with a line that encourages teens to report any abuse to “trusted adults.” All of which was approved by several professionals before adopting the textbook in the first place.

It all leads me to ask: Which parents are being heard? Certainly not the majority, as survey after survey tell us that most parents in America — 89% according to a recent National Institutes of Health study — support some kind of sex education, regardless of political affiliation.

Plus, there are already protections put in place for parents who want to opt out of their child receiving sex education. It’s really quite simple. You don’t want your child to learn about sex and reproductive health in school? Fine. But, you should not be able to make that decision for all of the other children in the district.

The absence of comprehensive sex education will be detrimental to students. As Miami-Dade schools parent Franzella Guido Chacon aptly said, “If you leave a void, it will get filled by the worst society has to offer from the darkest corners of the internet.”

Meaning, if parents are appalled at the information they’re seeing in a School Board-approved textbook, just wait until they see what teenagers will find online in the absence of any sex education at all.

Lauren Costantino is the audience engagement producer for the Miami Herald Editorial Board and a former Palm Beach County teacher.