Parents are attending the SD 212 Board Meetings questioning why the Board of Education failed to opt out of the new Illinois sex education standards, as well as questioning safety issues with girls in boys’ bathrooms and locker rooms and boys in girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms throughout both Leyden campuses.

With only the bare minimum number of votes to pass a bill in the Illinois House, the Legislature has approved the controversial National Sex Education Standards as the basis for all sex education classes in Illinois.

Many school officials and parents in Illinois want no part of new standards of teaching sexual education in the classroom.  

Illinois lawmakers passed a bill that aligned the state’s standards with a national model. School districts were given the option to opt-out, and they have in droves.

According to the website Awake-Illinois, only 20 school districts have decided to fully follow the standards, with 534 opting out.  

Now Leyden High School SD 212 parents are attending meetings and are asking why the Leyden SD 212 Board of Education failed to opt out of this controversial new sex education.

Illinois schools are not required to teach sex education, and thus can opt out of teaching these obscene standards. Local school boards have the authority to establish their own curriculum guidelines, and are not required to comply with the standards. Yet the Leyden SD 212 Board did not even consider opting out of the controversial new sex education. That has become clear as a growing number of parents are attending SD 212 Board Meetings questioning why the Board did not even consider. At one point based upon the blank looks of the Board of Education members it was clear that the School Administration had never provided that option for consideration of the Board of Education.

At the May 18, 2023, Board Meeting for the SD 212 Board of Education, the administrators tried to “white wash” their lack of transparency to the Board of Education and the community in general by paying for an attorney to “brief” the Board of Education and parents present for the meeting on the law regarding bathroom usage by both sexes as a distraction. The lawyer from Franczek failed to address or answer questions about the authority of the Board of Education to opt out of the sex education legislation, placing the burden on the parents to provide their own opt out.

Parents at the Board meeting continued to express concern as well as outrage about boys identifying as girls in the girls bathrooms and locker rooms and girls identifying as boys in boys bathrooms and locker rooms.

The legislation has now become law and the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has filed new rules with the secretary of state on the adoption of the National Sex Education Standards. As part of the checklist of things to do before instruction begins, school officials are advised to “Review and become familiar with the National Sex Education Standards.”

This begs the question: What are the standards all about?

Here are examples: According to the National Sex Education Standards, one of the learning goals for kids beginning in kindergarten is to “Define Consent,” and “Define gender, gender identity, and gender-role stereotypes.”

Beginning in the third grade, kids are expected to be able to “Explain common human sexual development and the role of hormones (e.g., romantic, and sexual feelings, masturbation, mood swings, timing of pubertal onset).”

Another goal for third through fifth graders is to be able to “Describe the role hormones play in the physical, social, cognitive, and emotional changes during adolescence and the potential role of hormone blockers on young people who identify as transgender.”

The standards also expect sixth through eighth graders to be able to “Define vaginal, oral, and anal sex.”

In other words, the standards go far beyond biology and seek to teach kids at young ages material that is clearly not age-appropriate.

The good news is that Illinois schools are not required to teach sex education, and thus can opt out of teaching these obscene standards. Local school boards have the authority to establish their own curriculum guidelines, and are not required to comply with the standards.

I have been sounding the alarm and urging parents to get involved and stop this curriculum from taking hold in their local schools. Numerous districts across the state are opting out.

Meanwhile, parents are asking how schools can justify teaching a radical sex education curriculum when so many of our students, across the state, are not meeting basic standards of learning in core subjects.