The Miami-Dade County school board voted this week to ban two sex education textbooks, leaving middle and high school students in the fourth largest school district in the U.S. without approved sex ed curriculum, potentially for months.
On Wednesday, board members voted 5 to 4 to not allow the two books, titled Comprehensive Health Skills, in Miami-Dade County schools after parents expressed concern that they addressed topics including abortion, emergency contraception, gender identity, and sexual orientation.
During the three hours of public comment that preceded the vote on Wednesday, opponents, including member of the local chapter of conservative group County Citizens Defending Freedom, alluded to Florida’s recently enacted “Parental Rights in Education” law, commonly known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law. The law, which was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in March, bans instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through grade three and restricts instruction on those topics that are not “age appropriate or developmentally appropriate” in other grades.
“Teachers that will be providing this material to children, which is illegal in the state of Florida, and the board that votes to adopt this, in the end — the country, the state and your community, will consider all of you groomers,” Lourdes Galban told the board, using the favored term of the far-right.
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County Citizens Defending Freedom’s local executive director Alex Serrano claimed that material in the textbooks “may violate Florida state law.”
“Much of the content is not age-appropriate, usurps parental rights, and is scientifically inaccurate and not factual,” Serrano said on Wednesday.
Politico reports, however, that a majority of the speakers at the meeting, including parents and students, supported the textbooks, noting that under Florida law, any parent can opt their child out of sex education lessons.
“Parents who wish to limit their children’s information about reproductive health have always had the option to opt out,” speaker Gina Vinueza said. “The proposed approval of the textbooks today would not take that choice away from them. However, if the board does not approve the textbooks, they will be taking away the rights of everyone to public ed that is based on facts and science.”
“You have parents that want that level of access and information for their children and those parents have a right,” school board vice chair Steve Gallon told WPLG Local News 10.
“The banning of books is a slippery slope,” board member Lucia Baez-Geller said, adding that the textbooks “follow the standards for our reproductive health here in Florida and I believe that every student should have a chance to learn the scientific facts that do affect them later in life.”
