Parents react to sex-ed proposals in public schools

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press

A sex education curriculum opposed by many members of religious and ethnic communities is expected to be voted on by the Worcester Public School Committee next Thursday, May 6.
The full committee is expected to hear motions made by members of the Standing Committee on Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports at Monday’s virtual meeting, according to standing committee chairwoman Molly O. McCullough.
Monday, after testimony from the public, the committee voted 2-1 for a motion to adopt “Rights, Respect, Responsibility,” which labels itself a K-12 sexual education curriculum and is promoted by Advocates for Youth.
Rachel Doreen Essien said she’s concerned for all the children, not just her own. She is coordinator for the children’s ministry (for age 5 through high school) at the Ghanaian Catholic community at St. Joan of Arc Parish in Worcester.
The proposed sex education “is not what we are looking for,” she told The Catholic Free Press. She said her fellow Ghanaians “hate it,” and youth said, “This is nasty.”
“Every parent will want to educate their kids when they get to the right stage,” she said. “The school can do it, but it should be age appropriate.” She said children will ask parents why they can’t do something their teacher said “is good for me.”
“You are trying to teach them to be good Christians” but sex education classes will teach them the opposite, she said.
Committee member John L. Foley said he liked the program’s K-6 component, because of the skills developed, including self-respect, good decision-making and consent issues important for building a foundation for students as they move into middle school and beyond.

Subcommittee chairman Ms. McCullough said in an email Wednesday evening that lessons on bullying and friendship would be used in the elementary grades.

Mr. Foley made a motion “to adopt ‘Rights, Respect and (sic) Responsibility’ as a comprehensive K-12 health curriculum for the 2021-2022 school year, implement it with fidelity, utilize the sexual education curriculum for the middle school and high school levels and to provide the necessary training for the teachers.”
Ms. McCullough said middle school starts in grade 6 in some schools, grade 7 in others.  She said parents can opt their children out of the program’s sex education.
Jacqueline Tran, director of religious education at Our Lady of Vilna Parish in Worcester, said she was teaching her sixth-grade religious education class about the Old Testament. Since hearing about the proposed sex education, she’s switching to discussing sin, abortion and homosexual behavior and encouraging other catechists to do so.
Mrs. Tran said that when she opted her son out of sex education he felt left out. Testifying at Monday’s meeting, she said that even when parents opt out, there’s no way to avoid unhealthy peer pressure.
Mr. Foley also made other motions: to commit to hiring more health teachers, to work on offering health education at the high school level, as middle school now has, and to request that the administration communicate well with parents about the curriculum.
Mr. Foley and Ms. McCullough voted for his motions. Vice chairman John F. Monfredo voted against them. He was the lone vote for his own motions that the district create its own sex education program, with piloting and transparency with parents.
Ms. McCullough said if people wish to speak at the May 6 meeting, they can inform the school committee office. The committee may vote to suspend rules for public comment.
Monday’s meeting was a follow-up to a March 30 meeting in which committee members talked about choosing between “Rights, Respect, Responsibility” and “Get Real,” a program developed by Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, or developing their own curriculum.
Opponents of the proposed programs, who outnumbered proponents testifying Monday, complained that the curricula could corrupt children, and pave the way for sex offenses, lawsuits and homelessness.
Proponents cited a need for knowledge and difficulties of foster children without parents to guide them, whose constant is school. 
“It’s just like communism in my country”; people can talk but that has no effect on the outcome, Mrs. Tran, who is Vietnamese, told The Catholic Free Press after the meeting.
“Everything you teach a child, they simulate,” even if told not to, Virginia Kamiri Mwangi, a Kenyan from the African community at St. Peter Parish and St. Andrew Mission in Worcester, told The Catholic Free Press. She asked whether children who touch others inappropriately will be condemned as sex offenders.
“Why are we destroying people who are very innocent?” she asked. “A child needs guidance, not exposing them to things they’re going to try.”
Girls might get pregnant and, unable to support a child, end up homeless, she said. She said she works with homeless families, most of which consist of women and children.
She took issue with the idea that children have a “right” to sex education.
“I belong to a culture where sex ed is not discussed,” she said. When women are ready to marry, the older women teach them about some of this.
“The African community (primarily Christian and Muslim) does not embrace same-sex” unions or education about that, she said. “You have to be sensitive to other cultures.” With the large immigrant community in Worcester, sex education and same-sex unions should be left out of public education, like the teaching of religion is left to families and religious communities, she said.
“Please let the Holy Spirit direct us,” Father Enoch K. Kyeremateng, chaplain of the Diocese’s African Ministry, begged the committee. He said he represents more than 1,000 parents and more than 350 children in the community.
“As an educational leader, policy maker, curriculum planner … you are preparing the students to fit into the society,” he said. “It is not only physical fitness (but) moral fitness, spiritual fitness. … You don’t develop a child with such graphic” information as these programs use.
“We have great potential in these kids – future leaders,” he said. “If you pollute their minds with this” they will pass that on to the next generation. “This is pornography … and pornography is evil.”
He also took issue with teaching children to try to buy condoms and telling salespersons they have a right to do so.
“You are telling the child the adult has no control,” he said.
Jason DaSilva said he has a barber shop, and no one he’s talked to agrees with this curriculum.
“I ask you guys, please, listen to the people,” he said. “We’re the ones who have the children.”
Rafael Araujo said he is pastor of a Brazilian church and part of the Latino community and is supported by 26 pastors and this sex education is against what they believe.
 In an email Tuesday, Michael King, director of community alliances for the Massachusetts Family Institute, asked, “How can a homogenous subcommittee that is so concerned about the health and well-being of minorities vote” for sex education those minorities spoke against?
Ginny Ryan said she wanted to ensure a Catholic expressed support and that many Catholics she knows support age-appropriate sex education.
Dr. Mark Rollo, a family physician, said he has cared for perhaps thousands of adolescents over the years and has seen less emphasis on teaching virtue and more on teaching youth to be safe, and, as a result “we often get neither.”