The school board approved a new sex-ed curriculum for ELHS health classes during their meeting on Dec. 8. The new program is called “Rights, Respect and Responsibility.” According to Anne Scott, sex education supervisor for East Lansing Public Schools, it is a more updated curriculum that educators, parents and students have been advocating for a couple of years.

“We wanted to make sure we were really giving our teachers the best in terms of instructional materials and resources,” Scott said. “‘Rights, Respect and Responsibility’ is the curriculum that we identified that seemed to be the best fit for our district needs.”

These checklists mainly included updating the HIV/ STI prevention and treatment curriculum as well as the inclusion of all gender identities, gender expressions, sexual orientations and cultures to better represent the diverse student body of East Lansing. The sex-ed board also liked how interactive the lessons in this curriculum were.

“By having students engage in interactive activities, a lot of students said they felt like it was allowing them to talk about things that felt more relevant to their real life,” Scott said. “I want students to feel like, ‘Okay, this is really equipping me for the things I’m actually encountering in my life, or may encounter in my life after I graduate.’”

Health teacher Becki Bishop agrees that the skills taught about HIV prevention and background diversity are very important for students’ future life choices and success. Bishop sees health as one of the most important subjects students will ever take at this time in their lives.

“East Lansing has done a really nice job of trying to put together the best package that’s going to be able to give kids the standards that we feel are important to help them to make wise choices and to set them up for a healthy future,” Bishop said.