A poster asking some Kansas middle school students a sexually provocative question has at least one parent up in arms.
“How do people express their sexual feelings,” the poster asks, before listing “touching each other’s genitals,” “anal sex” and “vaginal intercourse,” among other things.
After seeing the material posted at Hocker Grove Middle School in Shawnee, Kan., Mark Ellis thought it was likely posted by pranksters, WDAF-TV reported. He couldn’t believe school officials would actually expose his 13-year-old daughter to such a question.
However, after calling the school, Ellis learned the poster was teaching material and part of a health and science curriculum.
“Why would you put it in front of 13-year-old students?” he asked.
“Why would you put it in front of 13-year-old students?”
“It upsets me,” Ellis continued, speaking with WDAF-TV. “And again, it goes back to who approved this? You know this had to pass through enough hands that someone should have said, ‘Wait a minute, these are 13-year-old kids, we do not need to be this in-depth with this sexual education type of program.’”
Nevertheless, school officials have defended the decision to use the material.
“The poster that you reference is actually part of our middle school health and science materials, and so it is a part of our district approved curriculum,” district spokeswoman Leigh Anne Neal told WDAF-TV. “However the item is meant to be part of a lesson, and so certainly as a standalone poster without the context of a teacher led discussion, I could see that there might be some cause for concern.”
“The curriculum it is a part of, it aligns with national standards around those topics, and it’s part of our curriculum in the school district,” she said.
Ellis, who is threatening to remove his daughter from the sexual education classes unless the poster is removed, doesn’t think the school’s arguments hold water.
“This has nothing to do with abstinence or sexual reproduction, actually, a lot of these things,” he said. “I would like to see that this particular portion of the curriculum is removed from the school.”