【加州共和党】孩子的性教育应由父母做决定！

作者：州参议员Mike Morrell 翻译：韩爱杰

要了解有关此问题的更多信息，您可以访问我的网站www.senate.ca.gov/Morrell  （请扫描下面二维码进入网站），然后单击左侧菜单上的“GettingEducated on the Sex Ed Debate

”按钮。

By Senator Mike Morrell

Word count: 423

In recent years, I have heard from thousands of parentsacross our state concerned about California’s new sex education standards afterthe passage of AB 329 in 2015.

Since this change, many families have expressed that much ofthe curricula has gone from being informative to too explicit, especially foryoung TK-6 learners. Unfortunately, parents have only arrived at thatconclusion after fighting with local school districts to even see the lessons.

While some school districts get it right and partner withparents in good faith, fully disclosing what material will be presented, othersmake it unnecessarily difficult. For Denise Pursche, a mother in Contra CostaCounty, it took 30 days inquiring of her school district before she was giveneven half an hour to review the material – not nearly enough.

That is wrong and it gives the impression that there issomething to hide.

It was in response to Denise’s story and others like it thatI authored Senate Bill 673. It sought to do two primary things for families ofelementary-age students: 1) be open and honest by requiring school districts topost adopted sex education curriculum online, making it available and easy forparents to review and 2) restore the right of parents to sign a permissionslip opting their children into sex education if they deem it appropriatefor these young impressionable minds, similar to what they might fill out for afield trip or other extracurricular activity.

Thousands wrote in supporting SB 673 and more than 47,000people signed a Change.org petition asking the Senate Education Committeeto approve these two reasonable requests to keep parents in the loop abouttheir children’s education.

The diverse coalition behind SB 673 collectively representsat least 10.8 million people, including: the California Catholic Conference,the National Center for Law & Policy, the Islamic Shura Council of SouthernCalifornia, branches of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, a chapter of theNAACP, dozens of Korean Christian churches, nondenominational churches,faith-based organizations and others.

Despite all of this, Senate Democrats said no to parents andno to transparency.

Parents should be the primary decision makers in when andhow their children are introduced to this sensitive material, not governmentbureaucrats. Our work is not done - we will continue in this effort, andsupporting parents’ decision-making when it comes to sex education andCalifornia students.

To learn more about this issue, you can visit my website at www.senate.ca.gov/Morrell and clickon the “Getting Educated on the Sex Ed Debate” button on the left-side menu.