Separate Sessions for Boys, Girls : Irvine to Segregate Sex Education Class

Boys and girls will be segregated during sex education in junior high school next year under a trial plan approved by Irvine school officials.

The Irvine Unified School District Board of Education, responding to a survey of parents, voted 5-0 late Tuesday to separate seventh- and eight-grade boys and girls for one week of a 12-week health education course.

About 50 people attended the school board meeting Tuesday night, including four parents who told trustees they should honor the wishes of the majority of those surveyed who want their children separated by sex.

Many parents had argued, and the board agreed, that students might feel more comfortable discussing some sexual topics separately.

“We need to protect our children,” said parent Barry Hammond. “Sometimes we rush them a little too much.”

About two weeks of the health course are devoted to sex education. Students will be segregated for a one-week portion dealing with human sexuality and sexually transmitted diseases.

School officials said that separating the sexes will cost about $4,500 for extra staff and equipment. The board agreed to review the plan after a year.

District administrators had recommended that the trustees vote to continue teaching sex education in middle school to coeducational classes, even though the district’s own recent survey shows that a majority of parents favor splitting the boys and girls into separate classes.

They noted that the students overwhelmingly support coeducational sex education classes.

“I really think we ought to hear what (the students) are saying,” said Judy Cunningham, principal at Rancho San Joaquin Middle School. “We have very mature people that we expect a great deal from . . . that we expect to make heavy decisions in this particular course. They handle the situation really well.”

In the survey of parents, 57% of those polled said human sexuality should be taught in separate classes for boys and girls. But in a separate survey of 800 middle-school students, 76% said they do not object to being in the same classroom as students of the opposite sex.

The Board of Education commissioned the community survey after several parents objected earlier this year to a new required health course for middle-school students in which the topics of drugs, AIDS, anorexia and sexual development are discussed.

It was the fact that boys and girls were in the same classroom when the subject of human sexuality was discussed that seemed to bother parents the most, according to Board of Education President Margie Wakeham.

“Every time the family life or human sexuality curriculum comes up for review, there is concern by the parents,” she said.

Wakeham and board member Helen Cameron favored keeping students together during sex education classes and separating them for only one day at the end of the course for a question-and-answer session.

“I think it’s a mistake for us educators to make (sex) a mystique that you can’t talk about,” Wakeham said.

She said she believed students should be informed about human sexuality and allowed to ask questions “in the best, most honest, direct way possible.”

But board member Gordon G. Getchel, who led the move to segregate students for the week of sex education lessons, said the board should be responsive to parents’ concerns because the topic --unlike math or physics--is one that has to do with the values of a family.

Deputy Supt. Bruce Givner noted that while the survey shows most parents want boys and girls taught separately during the human sexuality discussion of the 12-week course, an overwhelming majority--91%--said they agree that information regarding sexuality should be taught as part of a planned curriculum in the middle schools.

Those parents who objected to combining the students for the discussions said they felt the students might be uncomfortable asking questions in a mixed group. But of those parents whose children have taken the course, only 27% said their children felt uncomfortable discussing sensitive topics in a class with both boys and girls present.

Surveys were sent to 3,000 homes, but only 757 responded. The student surveys were conducted in the middle schools.

Givner said the curriculum includes two sections called Stars and Stages, which show students how to resist peer pressure in a situation where drugs or sex come up, and how to deal with changes in their lives, such as those caused by a divorce in the family.

Givner said that the schools work hard to let parents know what the students will hear and see during the course and that they also have the option of excluding their child from the portion of the health curriculum dealing with human sexuality and sexually transmitted diseases.

“People have many misperceptions,” he said. “They think we’re teaching the mechanics of sex, which is not the case.”

Sex Education in the Classroom The Irvine Unified School District asked the first question of parents and the remaining two questions of students. 1. The teaching of human sexuality should be taught in separate classes for boys and girls. Strongly Disagree: 11.3% Disagree: 15.1% Strongly Agree: 34% Agree: 23% Undecided: 16.6% 2.Did you feel comfortable discussing human sexuality topics in class with both boys and girls present? No: 17.2% Yes: 82.8% 3.If you had a choice, would you rather be in a classroom with classmates of your same sex rather than a class composed of both boys and girls together? Yes: 24% 76% SOURCE: Irvine Unified School District