While 47% of high school students in Wyoming report having sex, sex education standards vary widely between school districts in Sheridan County. Some districts focus only on abstinence, while others discuss contraception but do not go into depth on LGBT topics due to perceived community resistance. The Wyoming Department of Education provides guidelines but allows flexibility for districts to design their own curricula.

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While 47 percent of high school students reported
ever having sex, standards for sex education in
schools still vary widely from district to district.
Sex ed continues to be a touchy subject
Cassidy Belus
September 3, 2015
SHERIDAN —
The birds do
it. The bees
do it. And few
in local
schools want
to talk about
it. Yet,
according to
a 2013 Youth
Risk Behavior
Survey, 47
percent of
high school
students in
Wyoming
reported ever
having sex.
A dreaded topic for teenagers and school o cials alike, sex education
standards remain ambiguous nationwide.
Curriculum changes from district to district. Sheridan County is no
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2. 8/18/2016 Sex ed continues to be a touchy subject - Feature Story, Local News - The Sheridan Press
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Curriculum changes from district to district. Sheridan County is no
di erent.
What works, what counts as working and what the school’s place is in
the education process has been grounds for controversy throughout
the country.
While the Wyoming Department of Education provides guidelines for
health and sex education, the decision on how and if it is taught is
ultimately up to the individual districts.
Currently 19 states require that sex education — if taught — must be
medically accurate, according to a report on State Policies on Sex
Education in Schools by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Wyoming is not one of these states. It also doesn’t mandate that sexual
education be taught at all.
The WDE has created standards on which Wyoming schools can base
their health courses. The Wyoming Health Education Content and
Performance Standards were reevaluated in 2011 and have been used
since.
According to the document, standards are “designed to allow school
districts exibility in determining which health risk categories and
traditional content areas are most relevant and meaningful to their
students and that should be addressed in their local curriculum.”
The document provides guidelines and four standards to be reached:
critical thinker, e ective communicator, self-directed learner and
responsible, productive citizen.
Content standards outline benchmarks, but their interpretation is left
up to the districts.
It comes down to “knowing your community” when teaching, said
Helen Grutkowski, the physical education and health teacher at
Sheridan High School.
She and Jessica Pickett — another Sheridan County District 2 educator
— teach the sex ed course at Sheridan High School. The curriculum,
which is a part of the health class, is “abstinence based” they both said.
SHS and Sheridan Junior High School focus on sexually transmitted
infections and how to prevent them. Other than short discussions on
condoms at SHS, contraception isn’t a focus. Instead the classes focus
on decision making, consent and local resources for help and/or
information.
During the unit, the class is visited by Sheridan organizations like the
Advocacy and Resource Center and Sheridan County Public Health.
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3. 8/18/2016 Sex ed continues to be a touchy subject - Feature Story, Local News - The Sheridan Press
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Advocacy and Resource Center and Sheridan County Public Health.
Pickett said the involvement of the community has strengthened SHS’s
program.
There are still areas that could be improved, however community
response creates hesitancy, the teachers said. While lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender people and couples are mentioned if
necessary, Pickett and Grutkowski do not go into depth on those
topics.
“I’m not sure we’re ready for that in our community,” Grutkowski said.
However they both know LGBT students are in their classes. In some
cases, LGBT students may not feel safe bringing up questions around
other students, they said. While disease prevention can be informative
across the board, Grutkowski and Pickett let their students know —
regardless of gender or orientation — that they are welcome to speak
privately with either one of them. Parents are welcomed too.
In Sheridan County District 3 the topic of sex ed is more cut and dry.
The curriculum is fully abstinence based. While high schoolers are
talked to brie y about condoms, birth control is not covered, said
Jannan Clabaugh, a teacher at SCSD3.
Students are taught about saying “no” to sex and watch videos on how
babies develop.
At Sheridan County School District 1, the standards are closer to
SCSD2, however curriculum is currently being drafted.
Similar to SHS, education about related topics like puberty starts at
lower grade levels and the main focus for high school students in
SCSD1 is disease prevention and abstinence.
If the draft curriculum moves forward, through seventh and eighth
grade, SCSD1 students will have a topic on di erentiating sexual
harassment from joking and irting. Additionally, the district would
cover appropriate ways to show a ection while dating.
By high school, students under the proposed curriculum would cover
the reproductive systems, present facts on teen pregnancy and
prevention and learn about the causes and prevention of sexually
transmitted infections.
Key focuses for grades nine through 12 in SCSD1 would be: health info,
products and resources, problem solving and decision making,
e ective communication and personal and social responsibly. These
standards apply to all topics covered in the wellness program and not
just sex ed.
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Bio Latest Posts
just sex ed.
While curriculum is under review, John Scott at Tongue River High
School said previous wellness education was abstinence based.
As of 2015, 20 states require sex education. The NCLS says sexual
education is taught in schools because, “Though the teen birth rate has
declined to its lowest levels since data collection began, the United
States still has the highest teen birth rate in the industrialized world.”
This is a concern, the report said, because teen mothers and their
children face higher health and economic risks.
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