In the UK, sexual health education is gradually taught in schools at all ages, while most US public schools don’t start sex education until the fifth grade (in which children are aged 10-11). However, in the next two years, as part of an overhaul of the Chicago public schools sexual health programme, Chicago children will now start to learn about sexual wellness from the age of five (or in kindergarten).
The Chicago board of education passed a new policy in which every grade will have to adhere to a set amount of time spent on sex education, beginning in kindergarten. According to a statement from Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the CEO of the Chicago Public School System, ‘It is important that we provide students of all ages with accurate and appropriate information so they can make healthy choices in regards to their social interactions, behaviours and relationships. By implementing a new sexual health education policy, we will be helping them to build a foundation of knowledge that can guide them not just in the pre-adolescent and adolescent years, but throughout their lives.’
There are 431,000 students in Chicago, giving it the third-largest public school system in the country. The new policy will enable the youngest students – the kindergartners — to learn the basics about anatomy, reproduction, healthy relationships and personal safety. By the age of eight, children will learn about the family, feelings and appropriate and inappropriate touching, and fourth grade lessons will focus on puberty, and HIV. Then, up to the age of 18, the emphasis will be on all aspects of sexual wellbeing, from reproduction and contraception, including abstinence, to negative outcomes of sex, such as bullying and the transmission and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.
The school board also announced that, for the first time in Chicago, sex education will cover sexual orientation and gender identity. In an effort to bring awareness, promote tolerance and prevent bullying, Chicago students will be introduced to terms and definitions associated with sexual identity, including those related to heterosexual and LGBT populations. If parents or guardians of students want to take their children out of the sexual health education programme, for whatever reason, they have the right to do so.
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