Orange County students missed sex education classes last school year after the state failed to approve the school district’s plans that included lessons on contraception and sexually transmitted diseases.
Orange County Public Schools decided to avoid the topic of reproductive health as district officials grappled with the mandates of a new state law that required them either to use state-authorized textbooks focusing on abstinence or to submit their own lesson plans to the Florida Department of Education for review.
OCPS and at least six other school districts that submitted their own lessons said the state never responded. In addition to Orange, the Hillsborough and Polk county school districts also chose not to teach reproductive health last school year as a result.
But several other school districts, including those in Broward, Collier and Seminole counties, used their sex education curriculum without state approval. They feared that otherwise they would violate a separate portion of the same state law, which says reproductive health is a must-teach topic.
All of these districts faced a choice between two unlawful paths — sacrificing the required lessons or teaching without authorization, said Brian Moore, an attorney at the Florida Association of District School Superintendents.
“Whichever one gives the superintendent the least amount of heartburn,” he said.
Orange administrators plan to shoehorn in last year’s lessons at the start of the new year, if the state approves them by then, said Superintendent Maria Vazquez.
The education department did not respond to emailed requests for comment on why districts got no response to their submitted plans.
In a meeting this spring with education department officials, Vazquez said several district superintendents shared their concerns that reproductive health plans had not been approved and were told they would be this month.
Florida law mandates sex education lessons in grades six to 12 that focus on the “benefits of sexual abstinence as the expected standard and the consequences of teenage pregnancy.” Until now, districts could fulfill that mandate either by using state-approved textbooks or by creating their own curriculum following state standards.
Districts have also been allowed to offer additional instruction. Orange, for example, starts in fifth grade with a class on the physical changes of puberty; Palm Beach County’s high school students get step-by-step instructions on how to correctly use a condom.
But the content of reproductive health lessons can differ sharply between those districts that craft their own plans and those that rely on the state.
Seminole high school students, for example, read skits where characters discuss the prospect of sex and the need for birth control, according to district lesson plans. A state-authorized textbook used in Lake County high school classes, by contrast, preaches abstinence as the only effective way to prevent STDs and pregnancy and does not mention contraception. It also encourages students to go on group dates rather than spend one-on-one time with a partner.
Districts typically provide these reproductive health lessons during a week at the end of a school year. Whatever curriculum they offer, parents can opt their children out of the lessons. Districts often provide online links to parents so they can review ahead of time what will be taught.
Maitland parent Arielle Haughee said she learned to her frustration in May — just a few days before planned lessons on puberty were to be presented to fifth graders — that instruction was canceled.
“This is core content,” she said. “It’s too important to skip.”
Years ago, Haughee bought a puberty book for her 11-year-old son, but she wasn’t sure she would ever use it. With the school-based lessons canceled, she brought it out.
Haughee, whose son was a fifth-grader at Dommerich Elementary School, said because the planned lessons were scheduled for the end of the school year, there was no time to address the issue with the Orange County School Board, even though she was upset.
“It’s irresponsible of the county,” she said, “because they have a duty to make sure that our children receive all of the content that they need to be successful.”
But from the county’s standpoint, it was in a difficult spot. A new Florida law adopted in 2023 required school districts for the first time to submit their reproductive health curriculum to the state. That same law also expanded the state’s ban on instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity, dubbed “don’t say gay” by its critics. It restricted the use in schools of pronouns that do not match a person’s sex. And it made it easier to challenge school books that include sexual conduct, prompting worried educators to pull classics from shelves such as “Anna Karenina” and “Madame Bovary.”
School boards that wished to use their own reproductive health curriculum had to provide their materials by Sept. 30, 2023, according to a Sept. 8 memo from the department of education to district superintendents.
Orange chose that route, sending a “comprehensive sexual education” package that promotes abstinence but “also recognizes the realities of sexual behaviors among teenagers and addresses issues relating to contraception and STD prevention.”
The material was the same it had taught in prior years. It includes teaching fifth graders about acne, body odor and menstruation and seventh graders about the reproductive organs. It tells high schoolers, “The good news is … everyone’s not having sex!” noting that nearly 80% of OCPS students in grades nine to 12 report they never had sex, but also provides detailed information on the pros and cons of various birth control methods.
But no word came from the state about whether the curriculum was approved or rejected, and so the district decided late in the school year not to use it at all.
After the school year ended, Stephana Ferrell, an Orange County parent of two, asked the school board at its June 11 meeting what it intended to do about the lack of lessons, prompting the board and superintendent to discuss the issue.
“It was unfortunate the state dropped the ball and left our students hanging,” said Ferrell, whose fifth grader missed the scheduled puberty talk.
“Would I be happier as a parent if I was in a district that decided to deliver the training anyway, even though it wasn’t state approved? Yeah, I probably would be happier,” Ferrell said in an interview later. “But I completely understand why the district did not do that.”
Seminole, which also never received approval, took a different course: It said it used its own curriculum because the statute requiring districts to submit materials also requires sex education to be taught, according to a Seminole County Public Schools spokesperson.
In Lake County, the school district used its own curriculum for elementary and middle school students, though it was not approved by the state. The district used the state textbook for its high school lessons.
“We followed the law,” a Lake County Schools spokesperson wrote in an email.
The Osceola County school district used state-approved materials for all grades. Terry Castillo, a member of the Osceola County School Board, said using those gives teachers a clear direction and protects them from accidentally teaching outside state bounds.
“When there is a mandate that comes down such as this, we’re typically going to go ahead and implement what the state is requesting of us,” Castillo said.
In Orange, school board member Alicia Farrant said she wants OCPS to adopt more abstinence-focused lessons. At the June 11 meeting, she urged others to consider “a great option” for curriculum from the Florida Conservative Coalition of School Board Members.
Orange’s materials are too graphic, she wrote in an email later, teaching students there are three ways to have sex — vaginal, oral and anal. “Personally, I did not want my children learning all that detail in school,” wrote Farrant, a mother of five.
But most Orange school board members, noting parents can opt their children out, said they wished the sex education lessons had been taught in the spring as in the past.
“When it comes to teaching science, it’s important that students learn facts about their bodies, how they operate,” said board member Karen Castor Dentel at the June meeting.
Otherwise, they “ask their friends … they go online. They go on their phones,” she said. “I would much rather have them have these guided discussions with a professional.”
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