A Milton woman is leading the charge to convince the Province that newly revised Health and Physical Education curriculum needs a complete overhaul.
“The curriculum is making children sexually awakened and aware of things that they don’t need to be sexually awakened and aware of,” said Lorraine La Vigne, a mother of two registered in the Halton Catholic District School Board.
La Vigne has reached out to everyone on her email contact list to sign a petition created in November 2014 called ‘Stop Graphic Revisions to Ontario’s Sex Education Curriculum, which has now amassed more than 47,000 signatures.
The new curriculum will see some material about sex and human development delivered to students a grade or two earlier than has been the practice and includes newer concepts, such as sexting, cyber-bullying and mental health issues.
In her email, La Vigne charges there was a lack of public consultation.
“The government suggests parents had input that was considered in the revision process of the curriculum,” she said, but questions the claim.
In interviews with the Milton Canadian Champion, Ontario Minister of Education Liz Sandals and Halton MPP Indira Naidoo-Harris state consultation began in 2007.
“I’ve been all over the Province… parents told me they wanted this curriculum updated. There are two or three million parents in Ontario. I can’t talk to them all, so we made the decision that the best thing to do was get an accurate sample,” said Sandals.
One parent from every publicly funded elementary and secondary school was invited to complete an anonymous online survey and the results were factored into the creation of the new curriculum, according to Sandals. This was representative of nearly 4,000 parents.
Marnie Denton, Halton District School Board (HDSB) manager of communication services, confirmed the consultation procedure outlined by the ministry was followed in the fall of 2014.
Denton said the data went directly back to the ministry and was shared with the Parent Involvement Committee (PIC) – a board-wide committee that includes many school council chairs and parents.
Naidoo-Harris shared some of the survey results – 98 per cent of respondents agreed it was important curriculum be reviewed and updated and 96 per cent said that health and education should be a top priority so students did not get information from untrustworthy sources.
“Our kids are living in a different world,” she said, noting the current curriculum has been in place for more than 16 years.
“Children now have access to quite explicit material that is unreliable, inaccurate and offensive,” she said.
Naidoo-Harris noted consultation also included more than 70 health-related organizations, including the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), the Healthy Schools Coalition, the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as parents, students, teachers, universities, colleges and numerous stakeholder groups.
“It really is the most consulted piece of curriculum in our government’s history. This is the one that has had the most homework done on it,” she said.
While La Vigne does not dispute some consultation took place, she questions the results of the survey and says members of school councils should have been advised to share the information and direct parents to the proper channels if they were concerned about its content.
“Instead, they (the Ministry of Education) put out pamphlets on their website in an easy-to-consume form with a quick rundown of the new curriculum, but it does not go into detail about the language our children will be hearing,” said La Vigne.
That language she is referring to includes terms like anal sex, oral sex and masturbation.
The new curriculum would teach Grade 1 students the correct terms for genitalia, Grade 3s about gender identity, Grade 6s about masturbation and Grade 7 students would learn about various forms of sexual intercourse.
“This is what a young child will have to hear in school… can you imagine?”
Regional and local Councillor Mike Cluett of Milton shares La Vigne’s concerns about the lack of consultation and the content of the new curriculum, telling the Champion he did not receive any information prior to the document’s release.
“In theory, parents and parent groups should have been involved more in this process. There is a popular saying that ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ In this case it feels like a small group has made that decision,” he said.
Chris Markham, executive director and CEO of the Ontario Physical and Health Education Association (OPHEA), said despite criticism from parents, the new curriculum is not much different than the one proposed in 2010, but noted the government in power now has the “backbone” to make it a reality.
In 2010, the Liberal government, under former Premier Dalton McGuinty, proposed similar revisions to the Health and Physical Education curriculum, but faced tough opposition from the Opposition and parents, leading to its demise.
“This government is more prepared to put out the document and stand behind it,” he added.
Markham also pointed out some of the “offensive language” referred to by La Vigne was not necessarily “mandatory.”
For instance, the mention of anal sex is not mandatory, according to the curriculum, however could be discussed within the context of prevention of sexually-transmitted disease.
“It’s part of the non-mandatory prompt that is at the teachers’ discretion if the topic should come up.”
The Ontario Teachers’ Federation (OTF) applauded the release of the revised curriculum, claiming it will help address student health and wellbeing, as well as student safety in an increasingly digitally-connected world.
“They (teachers) have been arguing for many years the current curriculum is out-of-date and that new curriculum and resources are needed to respond to the many, and complex, issues related to health and physical education,” said OTF President Rian McLaughlin.
The Halton Catholic District School Board Burlington trustee Jane Michael said she is “absolutely thrilled” and has received no parent complaints so far about the content.
Kim Graves, Milton trustee for the HDSB agreed, saying the changes are more reflective of the world in which children are currently living.
La Vigne has no intention of stopping her crusade against the new curriculum. She attended a rally at Queen’s Park on Tuesday and said she will continue to spread the word in hopes of keeping the curriculum out of the classrooms.
“If you make this the standard, what’s the next step? I will decide when my children are physically and emotionally prepared to deal with these issues,” she said.
Training has begun for teachers and the new Health and Physical Education curriculum is scheduled to begin in September 2015.
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