Medical Lake School District won’t be changing its structure or course materials when it comes to its health education curriculum for K-12 students for the 2017-18 school year.
That was the conclusion staff came up with after spending several months last year researching how its curriculum aligns with the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction’s (OSPI) health education standards.
“As a committee, we reviewed the outcomes and felt we were addressing them adequately to meet state expectations,” Kim Headrick, director of teaching and learning, said.
In March 2016, OSPI updated its curriculum guidelines for the K-12 Health and Physical Education Learning Standards for fall 2017 to include concepts such as self-identity and gender expression.
This caused concerned residents to pack the Medical Lake School District office during the June board of directors meeting. Many citizens were upset about staff possibly teaching these concepts to children and asked staff and the board not to adopt them to its curriculum.
Headrick explained that OSPI only requires schools to teach three topics in the health and physical education standards: HIV prevention, CPR instruction and the use of automated external defibrillators.
The health standards have six core ideas: sexual health, wellness, safety, nutrition, social/emotional health and substance use and abuse.
One example of how the district’s lessons aligns with OSPI’s model is with HIV prevention education, which falls under the sexual health curriculum for Medical Lake students.
Beginning in fourth-grade, students learn how communicable diseases are transmitted. When they are fifth-graders, students will learn how to define HIV and identify methods of transmission and prevention of the disease.
As sixth-graders, students learn about abstinence, how to prevent pregnancy and other sexually transmitted diseases. In seventh-grade, students will be able to identify a decision-making model that can be used to make a health-related decision and describe factors contributing to or protecting against engaging in risk behaviors.
In eighth-grade, they will be able to cite medically accurate resources about contraceptive methods, STDs and pregnancy, as well as summarize symptoms and treatment of diseases.
Standards that are not taught directly in health are administered to students through counseling lessons and other programs.
The district shared the updated health standards with the school board during a recent work session and later at an information night in May.
Headrick said a concerned parent asked to review the lessons and afterwards told her that “people should have no issue with them.”
Parents can access the district’s website to review the health standards. If they do not feel comfortable with their children learning any of the topics, Headrick said staff will provide their child with alternate lessons.
MORE INFORMATION
For more information the Medical Lake School District’s learning standards, call the district office at (509) 565-3100 or email [email protected].
Al Stover can be reached at [email protected].
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