Health and Fitness hopes to extend sex ed

Formal sex education curriculum currently ends after ninth grade when students complete their required freshman health and fitness class. Yet the health and fitness department does not see its responsibility ending there.

According to Health and Fitness Curriculum Coordinator Teddi Jacobs, the department is currently working to institute Get Real, a curriculum distributed in 2009 by Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood will continue to evaluate the effectiveness of this program through the data given to them by test groups, something Jacobs would like to be a part of.

“That’s what we’re using in grades seven, eight and nine,” Jacobs said of the program. “There’s a sequential series of lessons through those grades so that students are building their knowledge and skills, not just reviewing or repeating them from year to year.”

Along with implementation, the program will include an extra day of training for faculty.

According to Jacobs, Get Real is developed for grades six through eight. At this point, Brookline does not teach health class in sixth grade, but the department has put a recommendation in for one day a week of class for the grade.

Currently, both seventh and eighth grade receive two days a week of the program, while ninth grade continues to have it four days a week.

Sex education in seventh grade was recently added, according to Jacobs.

“Students need to be exposed to the information at least two years prior to consideration of engagement in whatever the risk behavior is, whether we’re talking about sex, drugs or alcohol,” Jacobs said. “That’s why we’re trying to work backwards in the grade levels, too.”
Jacobs said she thinks today’s students are getting involved in risk behaviors at a younger age.

“All of a sudden, here you are, being bombarded with all sorts of media, and you’re getting all these messages,” said Jacobs. “You need a trusted adult who can be that health teacher, a peer group for a chance for discussion and you need accurate information, not just what the media’s telling you.”

Jacobs would also like to extend the curriculum changes to the upper grades.

“It’s definitely an issue for me that after ninth grade, high school students have no health education,” said Jacobs. “Through our program review process, we did recommend a 10th grade semester course that would revisit some of these topics.”

Jacobs also plans to recommend 11th and 12th grade “booster sessions” as a place to gain information and to have discussions facilitated by adults.

In addition to making recommendations, Jacobs said the department currently strives to help each student connect with at least one adult in the building and to teach freshman health and fitness in memorable, fun ways in order to enhance the curriculum.

“We made so many recommendations that now we just have to be patient,” Jacobs said. “Budgets are a tough topic, but we are fortunate in Brookline for what we have been able to do.”