Granite Falls School District awarded Sex Education grant

The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) recently selected 16 Washington school districts to take part in a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) project to improve sexual health education.  “When it comes to sex education, schools should work within their communities to do what’s best for their students,” State Superintendent Randy Dorn said. “These grants will help them with that work.”

Superintendent, Linda Hall, applied for a Sexual Health Education grant this year and the Granite Falls School District was a recipient of the funding.

The Sex Education Grant will be piloted and the logistics and planning is underway.  “Health Education is an integral component to the education system and I’m excited to offer this new program for our youth,” said Hall.

As part of receiving this grant our district was allotted a certain amount of money for the first year to review curriculum that we as a district would like to purchase/use for grades 6-12, as well as pilot the program.

The grant also asks that we set up a team (ESHE District Team) made up of the Health Education Teachers to discuss this grant/start looking for new curriculum.

In March, the district will have a Program Supervisor for HIV/Sexual Health Education from OSPI coming to a Partner Meeting with our team.

The purpose of this meeting will be to learn about our district and community, review pre-work responses, and plan the next steps. We will collect data and have technical assistance from OSPI during their visit.

This project provides participating school districts with technical support and training, professional development and funding to strengthen high-quality instruction based on science. They will receive $500 each for the first year of the program and up to $10,000 in years two through five.

OSPI will partner with Educational Service Districts (ESDs) and state health education partner organizations to support the efforts of these districts. Lessons learned from this project will be shared with school districts across the state.