Background
The Keeping Youth Safe & Healthy Act (KYSHA), Illinois Public Act 102-0522, was signed into law by Governor Pritzker in August 2021. According to the Illinois ACLU, “KYSHA establishes the requirement for the way in which public and charter schools teach comprehensive personal health and safety (grades K-5), and comprehensive sexual health education (grades 6-12) if they are taught in their schools. This is an “if, then” model, meaning Illinois Schools are NOT required or mandated to teach sexual health education, but if they do, they must follow guidelines created by educational experts.”
AAUW Illinois supported the bill (SB0818) which became KYSHA and advocated for it to pass.
Starting with the 2022-23 school year, school districts which choose to teach comprehensive personal health and safety and comprehensive sexual health education in a grade must insure that it is taught in a way that is age and developmental appropriate, medically accurate, complete, culturally appropriate, inclusive, and trauma-informed.
Districts develop their own curriculum and instructional materials to teach this material, using resources provided by the Illinois State Board of Education, adopted from the National Sex Education Standards. These standards outline learning outcomes by grade level K-5 for personal health and safety and by grade level 6-12 for comprehensive sexual health education, for these learning strands: Consent and Healthy Relationships (CHR); Anatomy and Physiology (AP); Puberty and Adolescent Sexual Development (PD); Gender Identity and Expression (GI); Sexual Orientation and Identity (SO); Sexual Health (SH); and Interpersonal Violence (IV).
Parents may continue to opt their children out of this curriculum if it is taught in their school.
Comparison with former standards
These standards are much more inclusive when compared to the prior sexual education standards in Illinois schools which prioritized monogamous, heterosexual relationships and abstinence, leaving many students to feel isolated and failing to provide accurate information about contraception. AAUW has long opposed such standards..
Opposing views
Some politicians and parent groups oppose KYSHA. They cite opinions stating that this material should not be taught in public schools at all or, if it is, that it should adhere to a model of abstinence and heterosexual relationships. They use inflammatory language intended to promote fear in parents and cite statistics from noncredible sources, purposefully publishing and sharing disinformation.
We need your help and advocacy
As an AAUW member, your voice and opinion are valuable! Please support students and school districts in their efforts to implement and teach comprehensive personal health and safety and comprehensive sexual education.
Please email the school boards for your local school district (Naperville and Indian Prairie are listed below) and tell them that you are a resident, a voter, a member of AAUW, and you support teaching comprehensive personal health and safety and comprehensive sexual education in the school district and that you support the Keeping Youth Safe & Healthy Act.
Indian Prairie School District 204 School Board: board-members@ipsd.org
Naperville Community School District 203: boemail@naperville203.org
Sources
https://www.aclu-il.org/en/press-releases/keeping-youth-safe-and-healthy-act-becomes-law
https://www.aclu-il.org/en/legislation/sex-ed
https://www.aclu-il.org/en/publications/talk-guide-comprehensive-sexual-health-education-illinois
https://www.ilhealthyyouthact.com/
https://siecus.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/NSES-2020-web-updated-1.pdf
https://www.isbe.net/sexualhealth
https://www.isbe.net/Documents/NR-guidance-implementation-checklist.pdf
https://www.isbe.net/Documents/Sexual-Ed-English.pdf
https://www.isbe.net/Pages/Sexual-Health-Resources.aspx
https://ww3.aauw.org/files/2013/02/position-on-abstinence-only-112.pdf
https://naperville-il.aauw.net/2020/02/24/supporting-comprehensive-sexual-education-programs/