The curriculum changes

Uyenoyama met with the SHARP Warriors at the beginning of the year to discuss changes in the sex education curriculum already being made.

“I was actually really happy to meet with the SHARP Warriors because I was excited to be able to say that we’ve already started to implement this new version of the curriculum,” Uyenoyama said.

According to Uyenoyama, working on changing the curriculum means that a partnership between parents and teachers needs to be established. Training teachers to teach sex education and making sure all families feel safe while their students are being taught are all crucial aspects of successful and operative learning.

“We’re working on the training of the teachers. We also have to partner with the parents and the community because it’s important to make sure that all families feel safe,” Uyenoyama said. “We did a seminar and a webinar back in February. We were doing this to answer questions, to share the curriculum, to share the updates, because we know that it’s important to have partnership with the parents as well as with the students.”

Stone said that the new curriculum was explained in a district-wide meeting with parents.

“What Brookline is currently using is more youth positive. It’s less about prevention of the bad and more about emphasis on the good. It’s very LGBTQ+ inclusive and responsive,” Stone said. “It has a specific weaving in of the issue of consent. Having it be youth positive and reflective of the real experiences of youth and address issues of consent are all just hugely important.”

According to Stone, the Commission for Women hopes to work with students on reflecting the student experience into suitable and open conversation.

“Moving forward, what the Commission for Women hopes to do is to work with the students on bringing all of their work into a conversation with the school committee. Both about where in the policy manual it outlines that this is a good direction for sex education to take and the conversation about where it fits in the whole arch of health-education,” Stone said.

Uyenoyama said that separation of the sexes will no longer be the case in the new, updated curriculum.
Instead, students will be able to choose which conversation they would like to be a part of and which group they would like to go to. Every student will be presented with a choice between certain topics being covered on a given day. Anyone will be able to go to any particular session, and learn about what they want to learn about.

Uyenoyama met with the seventh and eighth grade health teachers to officially change the transgender definition in the curriculum. On top of that, Uyenoyama aims to work on meeting with the Gender Sexuality Alliance (GSA) to talk about being a creative listener—listening attentively, and acting upon what is heard—as an educator, and to reinforce that everyone feels welcome to be who they are.

Uyenoyama said that staff training, a very crucial part of the curriculum’s delivery to students, can be difficult with the amount of health teachers in Brookline.

“With comprehensive sex education, a good curriculum, good classroom climate, and really effective teacher training, you usually have what people need. What’s difficult about Brookline, but a challenge I’m taking on, is that we have eight different schools with lots of teachers to train,” Uyenoyama said.
“I need to make sure that everyone understands that these teachers are trying and we have to be mindful of how much training they’ve had and how much training they haven’t had.”

Teaching sex education virtually adds an additional challenge for teachers, Uyenoyama said. To address this, she conducted a training session for teachers to learn how to teach sex education effectively, both online and in person.

“We needed to know how to have an environment that feels safe socially, emotionally, physically and academically with the kids that are at home. Teaching sex ed remotely is different than teaching it in person. You’re not only in your virtual classroom, but so is the students’ family,” Uyenoyama said.

To inform the curriculum that is being taught, a district-wide survey has been sent out to students, in partnership with the Brookline Public Health and Counseling department. Uyenoyama said that this survey talks about behaviors related to sexual activity and decision-making.

“We’ll be able to use the data to inform what modifications we might need to make on the educational side. We can keep updating the curriculum, but if people are still mistreating each other, we need to figure out how we can make a safer environment and create the culture we want,” Uyenoyama said.

Creating the right culture within a classroom establishes that being anywhere along the sexuality spectrum is okay, Noble said. Regardless of however you enter a classroom and exist as a human being, establishing a place of respect, honesty and responsibility with one-another creates a stable environment to lay out the basis of a healthy future in kids’ relationships with their sexuality.

Noble said that the curriculum is in great hands with Uyenoyama’s willingness to work with the SHARP Warriors while implementing changes. According to Noble, Dean of Old Lincoln School Jenee Uttaro manages most of the administrative business with SHARP Warriors, and she has done most of the go-between.

Currently, the SHARP Warriors are taking action to write a comprehensive philosophy statement that will include a basic overview of how information should be taught and presented in a way that is both understandable and accurate for staff and students.

With more changes to be made to the curriculum, the administration and the SHARP Warriors will continue to work together to overcome the roadblocks and move towards something greater as a community.

“With the larger Brookline community, we’re working on getting this philosophy that encompasses what we want to see from the sex education curriculum. It’s a very bureaucratic process that gets bounced between a lot of people,” Hitchcock-Smith said.

Even though the sex education curriculum changes are being implemented, Noble said that the process to making real change can be slow. There are many changes to implement, so the main focus right now is for the SHARP Warriors to work on their philosophy statement while administration continues to look through the curriculum and determine the skills and values students should acquire.

According to Noble, starting from the ground up is an important step to implementing a valid philosophy statement. The SHARP Warriors are not trying to edit specific lesson plans to get everything they want into the curriculum. For example, Noble continues to push for a less abstinence-based curriculum, but understands that abstinence cannot be eliminated for good. Instead, Noble will focus on the next steps to implementing a philosophy statement that will continue to inspire change.

Stone said that moving in the direction of having health and wellness be a part of understanding our relationships with each other is a really great start to creating an authentic future for everyone.

“There’s no question in my mind that we will be making enormous progress towards having a better, more supportive and positive culture for everyone both in high school and beyond,” Stone said.