Go Cedarburg!

476 Wisconsin School Districts have spent the last 6 months trying to comply with the state's Healthy Youth Act. The law mandates topics to be included IF the district plans to offer Human Growth and Development. All are related to sex education with only an "age appropriate" nod to growth and development.

The law passed because it did protect local school district control and parents rights (opt-out clause). Willing to accept their victory, the bill's proponents are now getting a lesson in what "local control" means. They either didn't do their homework or believed their interpreatation of the law, the "intent", was more legal than the actual words.

On the one hand, local control means that the state does not have to provide guidance, training, legal advice, funding, define terms, evaluate programs, determine medical accuracy or create curriculums. Yes, the state does have to pursue federal teen pregnancy prevention funding, which is for comprehensive sex education, but historically, school districts have not benefitted from the largesse. Only Milwaukee has ever applied for these competitive funds irun through state coffers in the past. The law acknowledges this by allowing school districts to invite volunteers to teach their courses. So it is the agencies of the volunteers that traditionally have received the federal funds via the state--but now those volunteers have to instruct in all the mandated topics. A brilliant way to keep the riff-raff, like a crisis pregnancy center out, and Planned Parenthood in.

On the other hand, school districts have not been officially notified about how "local control" empowers them...unless they specifically asked for guidance. In a series of emails, obtained through an Open Records request, the spokesperson for the Department of Public Instruction informed inquirers that the local district decides age appropriateness, scope and sequence, emphasis given to mandated topics, legal interpretations, etc. In other words, the ball is in their court.

Wisconsin school districts have been embroiled in this local process --a true act of democracy in action. What is amazing is the creative approaches being pursued to make the course what the local constituency wants. Cedarburg, a suburb of Milwaukee, reached the law's deadline with a new curriculum that the board was not comfortable enacting. It sent its advisory committee back to the drawing board. It notified parents, on the premise of increasing family communication , a requirement of the bill, that students would be opted-in to the "sensitive topics" classes.

Imagine, the problems resolved with this approach. Parents understand what the sensitive topics are, the district would be more inclined to explain what this instruction will be, the parents and kids talk about their values regarding these topics and decide whether their kids need someone else's take on them. In the ideal world, this approach would mean that parents would convey their values, and because teens admit their parents are their greatest influence on sexual topics, a win-win situation results. It could also liberate a district from the 3-year cycle of opposition to its curriculum while giving an impetus to providing excellence in the teaching of the course. Why opt-in to mediocracy?

Even though Cedarburg would still teach comprehensive sex education, I applaud their attention to the well-researched stance that parent involvement in sex education is critical to outcomes. It seems now that the bill supporters do not. Cedarburg has been threatened with a legal challenge--enter ACLU? I'm not a lawyer but I think school districts have the law's interpretation on their side as does, in writing, the spokesperson for the Department of Public Instruction.