Sheboygan school district updates middle-school curriculum on STDs and gender identity. Here's what to know about the changes and community response.
SHEBOYGAN - Noah Bartelt, a 2019 Sheboygan North High School graduate, struggled with seeing himself in curriculum when he was a middle schooler in Sheboygan.
“I didn't even know that being gay, being queer was a normal thing that happens in the real world,” Bartelt said.
He said he would’ve liked to have had a basic discussion and understanding that queer people exist.
“I was a very, very, very, very confused middle schooler,” he said. “Even just like a mention of that, I think would have really helped me figure everything out as I was going through middle school, going through high school because it took a while to figure out.”
Bartelt said he experienced homophobia from his peers when he was in high school.
"I got called the F-slur and things like that,” he said. “I was in athletics, and especially in that hyper masculine environment, things were not great.”
With a lack of support from peers and the community, wanting to get out of Sheboygan after high school was a common refrain held by him and his friends.
"I'm glad that I had the opportunity to pick up my things and leave for college," he said. "But some people don't get that chance, which is just terrible."
Sexual orientation, gender expression and gender identity were among several contentious subjects among human growth and development discussions at several recent Sheboygan Area School District Board of Education meetings.
The Human Growth and Development Citizens' Advisory Committee is working to make updates to the human growth and development curriculum at the middle school level, which is a seven- to 10-day unit, with an opt-out option.
The committee cited an out-of-date textbook from 2007 and the need to bring SASD in line with current state and national standards as reason for suggesting changes.
Since Wisconsin schools have "local control" — meaning school districts, and subsequently school boards, have control over school and district policies and curriculum beyond standardized statutes — the board has heard and voted on several proposed changes.
After a months-long process of reviewing the curriculum and standards and speaking with teachers, the committee proposed three addendums to the current textbook that would be implemented in the 2022-2023 school year, which were met with a large community reaction.
What addendums were proposed?
Addendum one — which dealt with a statute focused on defining STDs, including HIV, and how they are and aren't transmitted — suggested adding HPV and Hepatitis B vaccine information.
According to the proposal, the Human Sexuality Handbook discusses HPV and Hepatitis B, but not vaccines that can prevent them.
Addendum two proposed IUDs be included as a viable method of contraception in the curriculum, which requires that the health benefits, risks and effectiveness rates of various methods of contraception, like abstinence and condoms, be explained.
The proposal included the definition, effectiveness rate, benefits and uses of IUDs. It said that IUDs don't protect against STDs and those who have an STD or recent pelvic infection, are pregnant, have cervical or uterine cancer or unexplained vaginal bleeding shouldn't use an IUD.
Other potential risks weren't included.
Possible side effects include irregular bleeding and/or cramping. Very rare complications include uterine perforation (found to occur in 0.01% cases) and pelvic inflammatory disease (1% of people experienced it within the first 20 days after insertion and 0.5% experienced it within the first three to six months).
Though getting pregnant with an IUD is rare, complications can arise if an individual doesn't remove an IUD while pregnant, including infection, hormone exposure, placenta eruption and miscarriage.
Addendum three proposed adding terminology regarding gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation, citing the standard changed since the human growth and development textbook's 2007 copyright date.
The proposal’s suggestion included definitions for gender expression, gender identity (also cisgender, intersex, non-binary, transgender) and sexual orientation (also asexual, bisexual, gay, lesbian, straight/heterosexual).
The current textbook includes definitions for gay and bisexual.
The committee cited that the term “sexual preference” is included in the textbook but is an out-of-date term.
The school board's vote and the community's reaction
The board voted 5-4 to approve addendum one (add HPV and Hepatitis B vaccine information) and 6-3 to approve addendum three (add terminology related to gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation).
Addendum two (add information that IUDs are a viable method of contraception) did not pass and was sent back to the committee for revisions.
Board member Susan Hein, who voted against addendum two, said she did not want to include IUDs as a viable method of contraception and board member Mark Mancl said he didn’t think it was age appropriate, sentiments that were shared by some public commenters.
Although addendum one passed, board member Rebecca Versey raised concern about vaccine information being added, saying schools should not be "promoting" vaccinations and that those conversations should take place between students, parents and their health care providers.
By the end of eighth grade, students should be able to “explain medical breakthroughs in HIV prevention and treatment” and “discuss current biomedical approaches to prevent STDs” like the Hepatitis B vaccine, HPV vaccine and HIV vaccines, according to the National Sex Education Standards.
Although addendum three passed and was supported by several public commenters, several board members and more than half of the public commenters spoke against it, saying conversations about gender expression were creating more confusion among children and that teachers should stick to the “basics.”
“We keep throwing more and more of these so-called ‘sex-ed’ terms at kids to educate them, but it doesn’t seem like it’s done to educate them,” Jon Paul, who serves on the committee, said in a public comment, referring to terms like cisgender, non-binary and transgender.
Eric Spielman, coordinator of instructional services for SASD and member of the committee,said students are already having conversations about gender identity and sexual orientation; the goal of addendum three is to take away ambiguity for parents and teachers when talking about these topics.
Spielmansaid the committee aimed to be "as neutral as possible” and make the suggestions in accordance with standards.
According to the National Sex Education Standards, students should be able to define and differentiate sexual orientation, gender identity — including cisgender, transgender and gender nonbinary — and gender expression by the end of fifth grade.
While schools aren’t required to include instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s human growth and development program development and implementation guide includes instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Mancl took issue with addendum three, saying that not including terminology like “male” and “female” or “man” and “woman” would make adding more terminology more confusing. Board member Santino Laster agreed that there should be a "baseline" of male/female terminology included.
Other public commenters spoke specifically about the term transgender, saying being transgender is a “trend” and an “ideology.”
Board member Ryan Burg did not see what the concern was with addendum three.
“I think it’s also important to realize that what these are, for Addendum #3, these are definitions,” Burg said during the meeting. “They are not — contrary to what you may have heard today — they are not political statements. They are basically saying, ‘This is what it is.’ And it does not say, ‘We think that it should be this, or 'We think it should be that.’”
Carolynn Lee, chairwoman of the Sheboygan County LGBTQ Alliance, spoke in support of addendum three at the public hearing to affirm transgender youth.
Lee told the Sheboygan Press that she thought the proposed addendums were minimal, basic updates to "bring the curriculum into the current decade,” especially addendum three.
“But it's validating,” Lee said. “In a curriculum, in the lesson that you're having in your seventh-grade health class, that just validates the existence of LGBTQ people in a holistic way right alongside straight and cis people. It's the full spectrum.”
Lee said passing addendum three presents an opportunity for all students to see themselves in the human growth and development curriculum.
“That's something that all of education is grappling with and should be grappling with — ensuring that learners and students see themselves reflected in their curriculums,” Lee said.
Bartelt said he can't imagine what it'd be like to be a transgender youth going through SASD.
“I got a better go of it I'm certain than the vast majority of queer people going through SASD, and I still had plenty of issues to deal with," he said.
Transgender youth are at a higher risk of using drugs, being victims of violence and attempting suicide compared to their peers, according to a report by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
This year, the Trevor Project, a nonprofit organization focused on LGBTQ youth suicide prevention, found 45% of surveyed LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year — more than half of whom identified as transgender and nonbinary youth.
For LGBTQ youth who found their schools to be LGBTQ-affirming, however, those rates were lower.
“I think if youths have the knowledge that queer people, especially transgender people exist, and they hear that from their teachers, I think they're going to be much more kind to (them) — (and) eventually (have) a queer friend or a queer peer come out to them,” Bartelt said.
Bartelt said the public opposition to addendum three and comments made about transgender people harms Sheboygan.
"Because it results in queer kids like myself wanting to do nothing more than leave Sheboygan and get as far away as possible," Bartelt said. "And I think that's unfortunate for the community."
More:Meet the UWGB professor behind decades of work advancing LGBTQ+ rights on campus
What happened at last week's meeting?
The SASD board was met again with pushback at last week's board meeting, where changes to the HGD committee's procedural rules and new membership was considered.
The HGD committee cited a growing interest in people wanting to join the committee and a lack of documented processes for questions raised about the committee.
Several community members expressed concern that the board was attempting to have too much control over the committee by considering these changes.
Among several questions they raised, two significant areas of concern were membership numbers (the committee recommended increasing membership from 12 to 16) and residency status (the committee suggested language that committee members could reside "and/or serve" the SASD community). Several public commenters said the state statute doesn't set a membership limit and requires committee members be residents.
According to the state statute regarding human growth and development committees, parents, teachers, school administrators, pupils (students), health care professionals, members of the clergy and other residents in the school district shall comprise an ad hoc advisory committee to a school district’s human growth and development curriculum.
The state statute doesn’t specify membership numbers but rather set limits to membership percentages for specific categories: school district employees and their spouses and school board members and their spouses can make up no more than one quarter of the committee, and no category of members, except parents, can make up more than one-fifth of the committee.
For areas like membership numbers that the state statute does not outline, SASD’s board policies are utilized to govern committees, SASD Superintendent Seth Harvatine said at the meeting.
According to a board policy, the board shall determine the structure and organization of an advisory committee — such as the human growth and development committee.
Regarding a residency requirement, it is not written in the state statute, although people imply it, Harvatine said.
After consulting with legal counsel, the residency status has been interpreted to apply to the last category of membership regarding community members; residency status isn't necessarily a requirement for another member, such as a parent or teacher who is serving as a representative in that category, Harvatine said.
The board approved proposed changes to the committee’s procedural rules with amendments, including an increase of the committee members to 17 instead of 16 (so there would be an odd number of voting members) and a requirement that voting members reside in the school district, serve the SASD community, or be a parent of a student or be a student in the SASD community.
The addition of three new committee members, two clergy members and a parent, were also approved.
What happens next?
The human growth and development committee will meet in January to elect officers, following the approval of new committee procedural rules. These positions will include chairperson, chairperson-elect and secretary.
Once that happens, next steps and timelines for the committee's work will be determined.
Contact Alex Garner at 224-374-2332 or agarner@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @alexx_garner.
This article originally appeared on Sheboygan Press: Sheboygan school district updates curriculum on STDs, gender identity
