* Name has been changed to preserve privacy.

Alicia* is an 11-year-old homeschooled girl. Her parents are former Democrats, alienated from the party of their youth by what they see as a shift too far to the left. Her mother is a moderate Republican, her father a far right Republican. They agree on most things, the main differentiator between them being their threshold for anger with politics.

Alicia recently went to a slumber party at one of her friend’s homes. When her father picked her up the following day, Alicia, a well-read child, asked about a new word. 

“What does oral mean?”

Her father said it meant to speak, as in oral argument.

“Oh,” she responded. “What does oral sex mean?”

It was then that I gasped and her mother broke down in tears.


Alicia said she heard the term at the slumber party. Alicia’s mother contacted the mother where the slumber party was held. The mother said she would find out what happened. Later, Alicia’s mother learned that the Everett school district had just started a lesson on sex education for sixth graders, which all the girls at the slumber party participated in, except Alicia.

This happened to be the same week I was sitting in the Methow Valley School District’s office reading its sex education curriculum. The lobby is small. Executive Secretary Jessica McCarthy was training someone five feet away from me, which made it difficult to concentrate. Maybe it wasn’t concentration that I needed. Maybe I needed help processing what I was reading. Between reading about bodily fluids and overhearing what’s what in the district computer, I asked if I could move to another location. My request was denied.

“This is our office,” Jessica said matter of factly, looking at me as if I was the problem. I have a pride streak and could have gotten into it, but I didn’t. Maybe it’s because I realized the fight is not inside the office but outside of it. Or, perhaps, the ship has sailed. I’m covered in grief as my insides burn with anger. The dampness of my sorrow meets my fury halfway, expressing itself in some kind of subdued pain, afraid that I too will be engulfed with the masses, holding whatever kernel of truth I have left as I suffocate under the weight of the majority.


MVSD uses the same curriculum for middle school as Alicia’s friends received in the Everett School District- Get Real. As president of the PTA, our board has been looking into the intersection of sex education, school plays and participation of transgender youth in sports. Most PTAs fundraise. Our PTA board came together because we were galvanized by issues. We haven’t done any fundraising because since our inception in December, we wanted to find out who we were and what we represented.

I contacted the school district’s health coordinator and asked if I could see a copy of the sex ed curriculum. I was told that due to copyright issues, it could only be viewed inside the district office during office hours. No photocopies or pictures of the material were allowed. I knew this argument didn’t hold water. Library books are copyrighted. So are digital materials. They can still be checked out and viewed. Plus, what was I going to do with the material? Try to sell it?

I sat in the district office’s small lobby. The district’s health coordinator gave me two binders of lesson plans and class activities to review. One binder was the Get Real curriculum for middle schoolers. The other, FLASH, is for high schoolers. FLASH is also taught in elementary school, but that binder wasn’t available that day. It wasn’t a big deal because I had enough to review in the 2.5 hours I had available.

One of the first lessons for sixth-grade students is “to get to know each other and begin to become comfortable talking about sexuality in the class.” Another exercise leads children to play a game called “What Am I?” Students try to guess what body part another student is representing. For example, “I am the tubes that carry sperm from the testes to the urethra.” “I am made up of spongy tissue filled with blood vessels.”

I can’t help remembering how uncomfortable our class felt during a slide show presentation of sex ed in 10th grade. I remember the class laughing about the uterus looking like the head of a cow. I remember the slide of the male body part lingering in mid-air for what felt like an eternity. We couldn’t move to the next slide fast enough. We were nervous and embarrassed at 15.

Seventh grade curriculum teaches masturbation, vaginal intercourse, oral intercourse, and grinding. As in the sixth-grade curriculum, students are given homework assignments to complete with their parents. Parents are encouraged to ask their seventh-grade child when they think they’re ready to have sex and “where do girls pee from?”

Another family activity asks children and parents to brainstorm qualities of “ideal” protection. The assignment invites children to “use your imagination and work together” to create a contraception product that is the “next great product on the market.”

Also in seventh grade, the teacher demonstrates condom use using “either the condom demonstration tool or fingers.” Seventh grade students are taught where to get condoms and IUDs, as well as where to get emergency contraception.

Students aren’t just taught biology. They’re taught how to have sex. There is an exercise that asks students to place the following in correct order.

  • “Have vaginal, oral or anal sex.”
  • “Hold on to the rim of the condom at the base of the penis”
  • “Check expiration date.”
  • “Penis is erect.” 
  • “Use lubricant.”
  • “Withdraw the penis.”
  • “Use a new condom if both partners want to have sex again.”

Reading the middle school curriculum, it seems no stone is left unturned. When these kids hit second base, they’ll already know what to expect at third and fourth. No more fiddling around nervously like prior generations. This generation is more prepared for sex than any other generation in history.

Abstinence is taught as the best practice in middle school, but that becomes an option in high school. Sex ed is taught from a public health perspective, whose focus is to prevent the spread of disease. The emphasis in high school is healthy sexual behavior.

We don’t allow high schoolers to choose a politician, but we expect them to choose a sexual partner with any reasonable degree of success?

Outside of a public health perspective, there is no discussion about why one option, such as abstinence, would be preferable to another option. I wonder who’s going to pick up the pieces after an emotional break up. I don’t see this discussed, but maybe it is. Abstinence, says the curriculum, is something one can return to.

My heart beats as a little girl walks into the district office. After the little girl leaves, I ask McCarthy if she has read the sex ed curriculum.

“Some of it,” she responds, although I suspect she hasn’t.

“You should read it,” I say, my disgust for the environment overshadowed by my concern for the little girl.

“I will,” says McCarthy.


The Get Real and FLASH curriculums continue to be used despite CDC statistics cited within the FLASH curriculum that find 21% of 9th graders and 40% of 10th graders have had sex. On the positive side, “only 29%” remain sexually active. Talking to a senior that recently graduated, I find myself less comfortable talking about the curriculum than he is. The curriculum is designed to normalize sex- among peers, with parents, and within society. 40% of 10th graders having sex is further evidence of normalization.

Societal norms have changed drastically since I was a kid. I had a child later in life. What transpired between my high school graduation and the birth of my child is unrecognizable. I have to talk to people older than myself to remember and confirm another reality. As we get older and the oldest among us pass away, that memory passes away with it. Not far off into the future, there won’t be anyone to remember how it was. It’ll be like imagining life in Victorian England.

As I talk about the sex ed curriculum, I’m afraid of falling into its hypnotic spell. I find myself growing more comfortable using terms I would have found reprehensible in an earlier life. A respectable person used to have to apologize before using words like anal, rectal, vaginal, dental dams (what the hell is that?) As I talk about the issue in PTA meetings, with school board members and with other parents, I find myself more comfortable talking like a sailor. My ego scurries to reinforce the walls of decency against an attack of the crass.

This isn’t who I am, it reminds me.

I sacrifice myself for the mission. Someone has to fight for these kids.


Today’s sex ed curriculum goes beyond what people in my generation fought for. I didn’t know what being gay meant until I was in high school, and that’s because of the growing awareness and attention to the AIDS epidemic. I went to college when people were coming out of the closet. Leave these people alone and let them be, was essentially the motto. I supported it. Little did we know how this messaging would evolve.

Today, the high school FLASH curriculum teaches heterosexuality is a societal construct. Here’s an excerpt from Lesson 4: “View short video that illustrates the ways society places expectations on people to be heterosexual. The teacher leads a class discussion to follow up, covering the ways that these expectations and pressures can be harmful to all people.” One of the stated learning objectives is to “summarize ways that society places expectations on people to be heterosexual, cisgender, and to conform to gender norms.” In two generations, we went from accepting homosexuality to inviting minors to consider everything in between. 

The final lesson asks high schoolers to share what they’ve learned publicly. In our case, our building houses children as young as 7th grade. “The final lesson asks students to create a social norms campaign in order to impact the larger school environment…. Posters are then displayed in the school, helping to reshape social norms that support healthy behavior.” Reshape social norms. Our public schools are no longer about academics, in which we’re failing domestically, not to mention on the world stage. They are a tool, a social factory of sorts, to reshape our society.

I wonder how the narrative will evolve from here. If sex ed is taught from a public health and not a moral perspective, will there ever be a line that we won’t cross? Will fetishes or safe sex with foreign objects be taught in the name of healthy sexual behavior? Will multiple partners be condoned if it’s done prophylactically?

If we want to understand why minors feel comfortable performing at the Merc in lingerie, or why the LBHS Drama Department persistently chooses sexualized plays, or why children use the f- word in the fall production, we have to understand the sex ed curriculum which our state legislature mandated and our school districts are fulfilling. It’s easy to blame Olympia, but I wonder who is protecting our kids locally.


Many years ago, I watched a movie filmed like a Greek myth. A town was experiencing destruction. As infrastructure crumbled, a woman ran into a Geek temple holding her baby. She placed the baby in the arms of a statue to a Greek goddess. She prayed to the Greek goddess to save her child. It wasn’t clear from her plea that she was very religious, but of all the options around her, that seemed like the best one. The temple caved in and killed the woman, but the baby in the goddess’ arms was spared. 

Religious zealots and the far left have duked it out for decades, but moderate secularists sat on the sidelines. Increasingly, there isn’t a space for secular families to disagree with an ideology that, to them, has moved too far to the left. In a culture that is increasingly divided, secularists are looking at… churches. Youth activities such as Awana and Vacation Bible School (VBS) offer an alternative to children from Christian and non-Christian families. A dose of Christianity in exchange for a wholesome curriculum. Some families are making that trade off. Awana, VBS, and Master’s Christian school all have children from non-Christian homes. As one of my friends said, “it’s better than what’s out there.”


Alicia’s parents are facing some difficult decisions. Despite their best efforts, influences they hadn’t expected entered their family unit. Now, they’re considering things like, how much in common does Alicia have with her friends? Do the positives outweigh the negatives? Girls that grew up together are diverging based on family values. A movement that aimed to bring inclusion is bringing exclusion.

Once a thought is planted, it can’t be unplanted. Desensitization through repetition normalizes thoughts and lexicon, and that’s exactly what Alicia’s mom is worried about.

To view the sex education curriculum for the Methow Valley School District, contact the district office at (509) 996-9205 for an appointment. Vacation Bible School runs 4:30-7:30 pm June 24-28 at Cascade Bible Church. Awana runs on Wednesdays, 6:30-8 pm September to May at Cascade Bible Church. Master’s Christian School, also at Cascade Bible Church, is accepting new applicants. Email [email protected] or call Cascade Bible Church at (509) 997-8312 for more information. To join the PTA to be a part of this or other conversations about education, email [email protected]

I am the founder and editor of Methow Valley Examiner, an online publication for locals, by locals. MVE explores stories beyond the headlines.

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2 Comments

  1. Julia, this is an extremely well written article illustrating the metamorphosis of our culture over the past decades. I hope more people will become informed about the cultural issues facing our society today and the danger these changes pose to present and future generations. Scott Larson

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