Novels, bookmarks, poetry collections…and contraception?
That’s right– Split Rock Books is now selling emergency contraception, also known as Plan B. Owners Heidi Shira Bender and her husband Michael Bender decided to make these important resources available at their store on Main Street in Cold Spring in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. On Thursday, January 9, the Desmond Fish Library in Garrison hosted a movie night with Planned Parenthood, where adults and teens were invited to watch the movie “The Janes” while packing safe sex kits to be made available at the library. And in both an in-person survey and an online survey I conducted on November 6 gathering Haldane students’ reactions to the election, the topic of abortion and human rights came up several times. It is clear that contraceptive options and bodily autonomy are on the minds of many community members and students alike–but how much about these topics does New York State require its schools to teach? This growing concern for sexual health resources drove my investigation into our sexual education at Haldane and its relationship with New York State’s health education standards. I wanted to not only understand what New York public schools are required to teach, but what they are not, and how this affects our student body. And, as it turns out, public schools are not required to teach sexual health education.
Sex is an uncomfortable topic. Sexual education can be uncomfortable to teach. And this editorial is going to be uncomfortable for some to read. But that discomfort must be put aside for the sake of the safety and wellness of New York students. The New York Department of Health says that occurrences of STIs in New York are increasing. According to the Office of the New York State Comptroller, Domestic violence in New York is also on the rise. And the New York State Office of Mental Health finds that LGBTQ+ youth are at an increased risk for suicide, with The Trevor Project’s 2023 nationwide report finding that more than 1 in 10 LGBTQ+ youth across America attempted suicide that year. The New York health education standards must be updated to include sexual education– specifically, I feel students should receive comprehensive sexuality education.
Comprehensive sexuality education– a comprehensive form of sexual education– educates students about STIs, respectful relationships, and LGBTQ+ identities, among other essential topics, and provides adolescents with the medically accurate sexual health information that they need in order to grow into responsible adults. According to the World Health Organization, age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education is “critical for [young people’s] health and survival.” Yet despite this, the NYS Education Department still has not added any kind of sexual education to its mandated health education standards; instead, it provides a “Guidance Document for Achieving the NYS Standards in Health Education,” last updated in 2005, which includes some sexual education topics that schools may, or may not, choose to use. Although other NYS laws require AIDs prevention education, not requiring schools to teach comprehensive sexuality education, or any up-to-date sexual education, risks depriving students of vital guidance.
Some may believe that to provide students with a sexual education that teaches beyond abstinence is to encourage teenagers to be sexually active. In my opinion, this results in fear-based programs that overemphasize abstinence and provide no real guidance. This attitude is dangerous because it forgets that teenagers grow into adults. Because different schools interpret the guidelines differently, students in some New York schools may receive little–or no–actual sexual education. Without sexual education, students could be left without the necessary tools to navigate sexual and/or romantic relationships in the future. The world as we know it is fraught with misinformation on sexual health, and New York’s exclusion of any kind of sexual education from health education standards leaves students vulnerable to outdated sexual health information and unsafe practices.
High school students are especially in need of a comprehensive sexuality education, as they are preparing to launch into the adult world. Many students begin dating in high school as well, and so lessons on partner violence, consent, and safety should not be glossed over. New York State standards must require the concept of consent to be clearly communicated to students. Students must understand what their boundaries are, and that they are allowed to change their mind at any point during a sexual situation. They also must understand when boundaries are violated. Sexual assault and rape victims often feel guilt and shame around their experience, and healing from this trauma is a difficult process. New York must not contribute to this difficulty by remaining silent on the subject and excluding an up-to-date and informed sexual education from education standards.
I believe that New York state should require schools to cover LGBTQ+ identities and resources in their health classes as well. Those who oppose the coverage of LGBTQ+ identities may believe that discussing different sexual orientations is an indoctrination effort. But acknowledging that queer identities exist and affording queer students as much education about themselves as their straight, cisgender peers get is equality, not indoctrination. It’s also extremely necessary. According to the New York Office of Children and Family services, nearly 60% of LGBTQ+ youth feel unsafe at school, with 95% of LGBTQ+ youth having heard homophobic or transphobic slurs used in school. Speaking generally, it is my belief that LGBTQ+ students are further alienated in schools when schools neglect to acknowledge LGBTQ+ identities in health class, reinforcing the idea that there is something wrong, abnormal, or unwelcome about them. However, updating New York standards to include LGBTQ+ identities would help to normalize these identities.
According to Haldane Principal Julia Sniffen, Haldane covers sexual orientation through a guidance push-in class freshman year, but it is currently not listed in the units taught in the health class curriculum overview. Haldane supports its LGBTQ+ students in several other ways, and so I encourage them to consider adding a discussion of different sexual orientations to the official health class curriculum, to aid in creating a safe learning environment for every student.
While public schools are not limited to the NYSED standards and guidelines, many choose to stick with them. Haldane meets all of the standards, and also provides a sexual education, pulling some topics from the “Guidance Document”. According to Sniffen, Haldane Health class includes a wide range of topics for sexual education, including abstinence, consent, different contraceptive options, STDs and STD symptoms and treatments (including HIV, as required), understanding the menstrual cycle and pregnancy, and the female and male reproductive systems. This exceeds the standards while still adhering to the broader guidelines, and I am glad that Haldane health classes cover this essential material. However, Haldane does not implement comprehensive sexuality education. In an interview on this topic, Sniffen explained that the NY guidelines do not include everything that comprehensive sexuality education proposes, and that Haldane adheres to the NYSED standards and guidelines. When I asked her why Haldane doesn’t include more contents from comprehensive sexuality education, Sniffen explained that there hasn’t been a conversation that she’s been a part of which discusses “what of [the comprehensive sexuality education topics] still fall under state standards and the guidelines that can be included within the curriculum.”
Having comprehensive sexuality education made a part of the mandated health standards through the New York education laws would certainly add clarity and make it easier for schools to incorporate into their classrooms. I applaud Haldane for what they include that goes beyond the standards, for the Health curriculum covers many essential sexual education topics. However, I encourage the school to not wait to consider broadening the number of sexual education topics included in its health classes.
Understanding the Standards
The New York State Department of Education has standards for Health Education, which school districts like Haldane must follow when developing their health class curriculums. The standards are called “Learning Standards for Health, Physical Education, and Family and Consumer Sciences.” This is the document that lacks any requirement to teach sexual health education.
In addition to the required standards, New York State provides a guidebook to schools entitled “A Guidance Document for Achieving the New York State Standards in Health Education,” which, to its credit, is slightly more thorough, including coverage of protection and different sexual orientations. However, it is just a guide, so how (and whether) New York school districts apply its contents to their curriculum varies across the state. This guide was last updated in 2005. This is a problem, as we as a country have advanced in our knowledge of various areas of health and health education since then. I contacted several Haldane administrators to discuss the problem of the outdated health education standards, and they expressed their agreement.
“I have a serious issue with the fact that these health standards haven’t been updated since 1997,” stated Principal Julia Sniffen. “What we know about health and nutrition [has advanced]…Yes, [the guidelines] came out in 2005; that’s still 20 years ago, and that ‘Guidance Document’ didn’t change the standards.”
When asked over email to comment on his opinion regarding the outdatedness of the standards, Tom Cunningham, Haldane’s Director of Health, Athletics Director, and Dean of Students, provided an opinion that was aligned with that of Principal Sniffen. “I do believe the New York State health standards and requirements are outdated,” stated Cunningham. “1997 is the last time the standards were completed.” He continued, “I think two of the main issues would be including such topics as mental health and updating the sexual education portion of the standards.”
Haldane Health teacher, Ed Crowe, was unavailable for an in-person interview, but agreed to provide a written statement about the outdated standards and guidelines in response to my questions. “I do believe the standards are outdated and should be revised and revisited,” Crowe stated. “The standards were made in 1997 and should be updated.” When asked if he believed New York state should add sexual education to its education standards, Crowe stated, “I do think that the New York State Health Education Standards should require sexual education as part of their standards.”
When Principal Sniffen was asked about what parts of sexual health she thinks a health class should be required to include by New York state, she stated, “I believe that students need to understand sexual health. I think that they need to understand their body. Not just physical sexual relationships, but the emotional aspect of it…So yes, I do think that healthy relationships, keeping our students safe both physically, emotionally, and mentally, all of that should be covered in health classes.”
How the Standards are Applied at Haldane
When asked to clarify how the standards and guidelines are applied at Haldane, Sniffen explained, “The standards are your baseline, and you have to cover those standards.” The guidelines, she explained, are not required. “There’s some wiggle room in regards to curriculum and how the guidelines are implemented or taught, or what portion of the guidelines are implemented or taught,”she said.
In an interview, Josh Elder, Director of Curriculum and HR services at Haldane, explained that standards and guidelines are taught to students through the lens of the values of schools and communities. Both Elder and Sniffen gave the example of the “Haldane Essentials”– Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, Communication, Growth Mindset, Emotional Intelligence, and Wellness–which are a reflection of Haldane’s beliefs and achievement goals for their students. But ultimately, Elder said that the “standards are the drivers of the curriculum.” Teachers have “a degree of control,” he said, when it comes to curriculum development, as “they are the ones who take the standards and operationalize them into lessons.” He also noted that district pacing calendars play a huge role in what classes do and don’t cover. Teachers are required to ensure all standards are met, which may result in some topics getting less class time than others, especially if those topics are not outlined in the standards. Sexual education is not outlined in the NYSED health education standards, but it is included in the New York guidelines. Edler confirmed that Haldane meets the health education standards and utilizes the guidelines to craft the health curriculum.
Students Speak Out
New York State law does have strengths when it comes to sexual education at the lower school levels; at the elementary and middle school levels, the incredibly important Erin’s Law requires public schools to teach about healthy relationships, bodily autonomy, and childhood sexual abuse from grades kindergarten to eighth. However, the absence of any kind of sexual health education at the high school level from New York standards must be corrected.
It is my opinion that adding comprehensive sexuality education to New York State health education standards would help schools provide essential lessons. An opt-out to parents, similar to what the law requires for AIDs prevention instruction, could be included for those who disagree with any part of the curriculum. If comprehensive sexuality education is included in those standards, schools would be more protected from conflicts over the contents of their sex ed program, as they would be required by the state government to teach said content.
I asked a handful of Haldane High School students to share with me some ideas for what parts of sexual education they believed a health class should be required to cover by New York State.
“Consent, that’s important,” stated Marc Firpo, senior.
Very important, yet not in the standards.
“Differences between men and women, both psychologically and physically,” junior Lucius Bell contributed. “Sex itself, what protection is and how to use it.”
This, too, is essential education that is missing from the standards.
“People should be aware of the ups and downs of it,” said sophomore Brandon Treloar, clarifying that he was referring both to the emotional aspects and the safety aspects of sexual relationships.
Sophomore Corinna Mueller believes that a high school level sexual health unit should be “a more adult, more mature version of ‘the talk,’” expressing her desire for an age-appropriate education.
In part two of this investigation, I will dive deeper into the Haldane student opinion and continue the conversation about sexual health education in relation to New York education law.
To provide feedback, express a concern, ask a question, or submit a letter to the editor, email [email protected].
