School Board Discusses Delays

You know the citizens advisory committee for the new sex-ed curriculum has had its last four meetings cancelled. The school district has hinted at meetings with legal staff, but they are playing this very close to the chest. Yesterday the topic came up in a school board meeting. The Gazette reports:

A panel convened to review the county school system’s sex education curriculum has canceled its past three meetings because it didn’t have any material to review.

The 15-member Citizen Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development has not met since April 5, and there are no meetings scheduled for the summer, said Brian J. Porter, the superintendent’s chief of staff and the school system’s liaison to the panel.

The committee is waiting for school administrators to present materials for their review, Porter said at Tuesday’s county school board meeting in Rockville.

School administrators have not brought the new curriculum before the panel because it is still under review by school system lawyers.MCPS sex ed debate stalled by legal review: Superintendent says schools want to avoid another challenge

Well, first of all, it's been four meetings, and not three. Meetings scheduled for April 24th, May 11th, May 25th, and June 12th have all been called off.

I'm on the committee, you know, and I gotta say, I ran into a guy at the mall recently who looked vaguely familiar. Later I remembered it was somebody from this committee -- I didn't even recognize him. It's been more than two months.

So they're talking to lawyers? About what?

‘‘The issues have risen around making sure we have the curriculum, the teacher resource materials and the teacher preparation materials aligned and consistent,” Porter said.

Committee members have expressed frustration about the pace of the review, but said the group’s meetings have been productive. At the April 5 meeting, the committee approved framework that will guide the new curriculum.

Superintendent Jerry D. Weast said his office is doing a careful review of the lessons in the wake of a federal lawsuit last year that challenged revisions to the curriculum. The revisions included a discussion of sexual orientation and a video demonstrating condom use.

Yes, some committee members have expressed frustration. Have I? Oh, OK, a little bit. The current sex-ed curriculum has been around since Nixon was President. It's about time to update it. We're ready.

Skipping a little bit:

A Feb. 17 memo from Weast to the board said recommendations would be brought to the board for a vote this month. Weast backed away from that schedule on Tuesday.

‘‘Last time my office didn’t thoroughly do its due diligence in its review, nor did our attorneys do it, and we’re not going to go there again,” he said.

Porter said he was not sure what the delays would mean for the condom demonstration video, which was scheduled for field tests this fall.

On Tuesday, Sarah Hund, an organizer with NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland, told the board that the delay is harming students.

‘‘We are particularly concerned that [the school system] has still not released to classrooms the condom-use demonstration video, which was created at the request of students several years ago, who asked for help in learning the proper use of condoms ...,” said Hund, who is not on the panel. ‘‘This video was not even considered in the last lawsuit, which is all the more reason it should not have been withheld from another class of students.”

Yes, that's the point, isn't it? Educating the students. The video that is now used is out of date. Kids can't relate to the afros and the bell-bottoms any more, they spend more energy giggling at the groovy threads than learning about something that might turn out to be very important to them.

The planned field test of the curriculum on sexual orientation, scheduled for spring 2007, and the full rollout of the new curriculum, scheduled for the 2007-2008 school year, are still on track, Weast said.

‘‘I’m committed to moving forward with the curriculum,” said board member Patricia B. O’Neill (Dist. 3) of Bethesda. ‘‘But there was a very costly piece of litigation against us last year, and I want to be careful we don’t incur legal expenses that are astronomical.”

I usually try to watch these meetings online or on TV, but I missed it yesterday, so I'm just going by what several people described to me. It sounds like this was a very unscripted discussion, not even something on the agenda, but something that came up when Ms. Hund raised the issue in public comments. I was told that Dr. Weast gave the impression that he is out of the loop, which is interesting, because I have also been told that some board members feel that the Superintendent is leaving them out of the loop. The citizens committee is definitely being left out of the loop.

Is anybody in the loop?

Is there a loop?

If they're trying to stall this until after the election, then the controversy becomes, not sexual orientation and condoms, but ... stalling. Do voters want a school board and Supervisor that can't make a decision? Do they want a school system that spends their tax money on high-priced lawyers, just in case some loudmouths complain?

My guess is that county voters want a Superintendent and Board of Education that can take the bull by the horns, that will put the facts on the table, make some decisions, and implement the curriculum they promised the county years ago. If they are going to back down on their commitment to provide comprehensive, inclusive, and up-to-date sex education to Montgomery County students, then they should tell the public now.