Students in grades 4-12 will be participating in sexual health education and HIV/AIDS prevention lesson as part of their classes at OCEAN this school year.
Our district is using lessons from Rights, Respect, Responsibility Advocates for Youth, which includes information about how people get HIV and how to prevent it. It stresses the importance of student-family communication and abstaining from sex. It provides age-appropriate information about human growth and development and the reproductive system, healthy relationships, consent, abstinence, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and pregnancy prevention methods.
Since 1988, all Washington students in grades 5-12 must receive HIV/AIDS prevention education at least once each year (RCW 28A.230.070). Parents and guardians may remove their children from these lessons with a written request after attending a district presentation about the curriculum. Students will be given other lessons.
Since 2022 all Washington schools are required to provide comprehensive sexual health education at least twice between grades 9-12, at least twice in grades 6-8, and at least once in grades 4-5. Parents and guardians may review the sexual health education curriculum and may remove their children from these lessons with a written request. (RCW 28A.300.475). Students will be given other lessons.
A presentation for parents and guardians will be held at back to school night:
Manday, September 23, at 5pm at OCEAN.
For more information, to request an interpreter for the parent presentation,
or to request that your child(ren) be removed from lessons, please contact: Sarah Rubenstein, srubenstein@ptschools.org.
