Hello Healthy Futures Community, I wanted to alert you to a bill that is up for a hearing Tuesday in the House Public Education Committee. The bill is SB 163 by Senator Donna Campbell. It has already cleared the Senate. What would SB 163 do? Last session, the legislature implemented a requirement that students get written consent from their parents in order to participate in sex education. The opt-in requirement expires in 2024, so SB 163 would make it permanent. Previously, parents could opt their kids out of sex education if they opposed the instruction. Texas also now requires written parent permission for any instruction on abuse prevention. Why is this a concern? Texas has one of the highest rates of teen birth in the nation, with a baby born to a teen mother once every 25 minutes. Rates of sexually
transmitted infections are on the rise. Sex education can support healthy outcomes for our kids. Many families fail to return opt-in forms because they simply overlook them or forget about them – and research shows that kids who are the most at-risk for outcomes like teen pregnancy are the ones whose parents are least likely to manage to return the paperwork. Additionally, Texas law puts a lot of unnecessary red tape in front of districts when it comes to these permission forms. For example, the forms can’t go out with any other documents, making them much harder to manage. In fact, the sex ed permission slip and the abuse prevention permission slip
can’t even go out together, despite the fact that this content is part of the same health class! Simple changes to state law could allow these forms to go out in the beginning of year registration packets, where parents are more likely to actually see them, improving transparency for parents. What can you say?
“I think that opt-out policies for sex education are better for Texas kids. But if we make opt-in permanent, please take steps to remove administrative red tape and make these laws easier for our overworked teachers to comply with.” |
