Red Oak ISD is making changes to its curriculum for human sexuality for the 2021-22 school year.
During Monday’s ROISD Board of Trustees meeting the board approved the curriculum as recommended by the School Health Advisory Council (SHAC), which recommends programs to be suitable for students.
One change involves the curriculum for students in middle school and and ninth grade. The district is replacing the Choosing the Best program with the Aim for Success program, which Sue Brown, director of health services, said is more up-to-date and doesn’t take as long to complete. She said Aim for Success uses a one-hour live program, whereas the previous program took about a week to complete.
Aim for Success is tailored to each grade level.
The program for seventh- and eighth-graders will be “Understanding the Risks and Rewards of Technology.”
“Our TV and movies are very sexually saturated now,” Brown said. “We want to teach them how to make good choices. It’s making healthy choices, healthy relationships, also putting down their devices and talking and having real relationships with people through conversation.”
The sixth-grade program focuses on sexual health awareness, personal goals and how to achieve with healthy relationships. It also discusses STD, teen pregnancies, sexting and sexual abuse, as well as general laws related to those topics.
The fifth-grade program focuses on human growth, making healthy choices and healthy relationships.
The fourth-grade program be continue to be provided by Proctor & Gamble and includes a puberty discussion done by school nurse.
Another change is including the Freedom to Succeed – What the Law Says About Sexual Activity program for ninth-graders. The program will focus on legal aspects related to teen pregnancy, child support, sexual crimes, dating violence, sexting, pornography and age differences.
Currently it’s only used in the 11th grade in ROISD.
“There are anonymous surveys that are done at the end of the Aim for Success programs, and the information that we’ve gotten back is that our 11th-graders wish they had learned this information much earlier,” Brown said. “It was too late for many of them. They felt that this information should have been shared at a younger age.”
Brown said it will be presented again next year to ensure all high-schoolers can receive the information, Brown said.
Brown said all of the programs are opt-in.
She said Aim For Success has parent information meetings that parents can attend or watch online where they can ask questions.
“Parents might have concerns about the program,” Brown said. “But once they hear the presentation, and the information given at the parent meeting is exactly what the child is going to be seeing. So it’s important for them to see what the child is going to see and hear.”