Those omissions reflect a larger battle for control over what information kids can access, that's seen book bans, pride events and trans youth targeted by lawmakers. It does not include instruction on consent, gender or LGBTQ+ topics. "It had been a minute."īut the new curriculum still leaves things out. "These standards hadn't been updated since Titanic was out in theaters," said Jen Biundo, director of policy and data with the organization. The group offers sex education to young people to equip them to be adults. But Texas is routinely in the top ten states with the highest teen birth rate, with 22.4 teen births per 1000 females aged 15-19, compared to California's rate of, or Vermont's at, according to 2019 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Īn educator in Dallas holds an instructional device at the North Texas Alliance to Reduce Unintended Pregnancy in Teens. Teen birth rates across the country have been declining since 2007, according to the U.S. If you're not giving kids that, you're not equipping them to be adults." "Not only does it determine your personal health, it's the health of your family.
"Your reproductive and sexual health is really important for your life," said Terry Greenberg, the founder of North Texas Alliance to Reduce Unintended Pregnancy in Teens. The new curriculum comes after years of work from organizations across Texas that are trying to mainstream conversations about sexual health. Working to normalize sexual health conversations And despite the state's high teen birth rate, a recent policy change by Texas leaders made sex education opt-in, rather than opt-out, which means some kids might not get any instruction in schools at all. The new curriculum, which will be taught starting in fall 2022, includes detailed information about birth control and STIs for the first time.īut it leaves out some key elements advocates wanted to see. It has updated the health curriculum, including sexual health, for elementary and middle school students. "It was a lot of catching up," she said.Īfter more than two decades, the Texas State Board of Education is finally catching up too. Instead, in 2020, Byrd started training to be a peer educator through Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, where she learned details about STIs, and different methods of birth control. That was the last time she got any sex education in school, Byrd said, as it's not mandatory once kids get to high school. "It was really weird."īyrd said the instructors never explained what the STIs were, just that people should wear condoms to prevent them. But if she doesn't have a glove on, then she'll get the disease or something,' " Byrd said. "They had a couple of kids come up, put on gloves, and said, 'If he throws the ball to her and she has a glove on, then she's protected. The talk involved a bunch of tennis balls with the names of STIs written on them. She remembers when a group came to talk to her class about sexually transmitted infections in eighth grade. Chester, an advocate with the Texas Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, says she hopes the state's updated sex education curriculum will lead to more open conversation between parents and kids.Ĭali Byrd is a junior at Booker T.