Curriculum
All units and lessons in Inclusive Sex Education are aligned to the California Health Framework (2019), the California Healthy Youth Act (2015) and addresses all of the California State Standards for Health grades 9-12.
Curricumlum Information
Why Inclusive Sex Education?
Research consistently supports that for sex education to be effective it must be inclusive and comprehensive. Inclusive Sex Education is comprehensive sexual health curriculum that is medically accurate, unbiased, and that intentionally and consistently includes and empowers diverse bodies and identities. Inclusive Sex Education is aligned to the California Health Framework (2019), and the California Healthy Youth Act (2015).
How the curriculum was developed:
The units and lessons in Inclusive Sex Education were created by Jamie A. Cutter, M.Ed. over several years while teaching high school health in Santa Cruz County. Teachers provided input after teaching with the curriculum and students provided feedback on the lessons. The curriculum was fine-tuned to support and engage a wide range of student learners.
After researching and finding that access to LGBTQ+ inclusive and comprehensive sex education was inconsistent in schools across Santa Cruz County, the Safe Schools Project of Santa Cruz County received a generous grant from the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County to train a cohort of teachers to use Inclusive Sex Education and collect data on both teacher and student experiences. We used this data to make further improvements to the curriculum for our second edition.
In 2021, the Adolescent Sexual Health Working Group (ASHWG) conducted an extensive curriculum review and provided feedback for The Safe Schools Project on the second edition of Inclusive Sex Education. In 2022 we created a third edition that incorporates that feedback and also includes digital resources to address the increasing need for easy pivoting to virtual learning.
About the curriculum:
All units and lessons in Inclusive Sex Education are aligned to the California Health Framework (2019), the California State Standards for Health grades 9-12, and are in compliance with all components of the California Healthy Youth Act (2015). Unit 1: Reproductive Anatomy also includes a review of the anatomy health standard for Grade 5 since data we collected showed many students did not come to high school knowing this basic anatomy. Each unit includes a comprehensive backwards plan that includes a list of standards addressed, essential questions and enduring understandings, academic language and vocabulary, and information on equity and inclusiveness. Each lesson includes an opening activity that activates prior knowledge, a core activity that teaches new concepts, options for scaffolding, and all units include at least one homework assignment. Extra credit opportunities and a final exam are also included.
Lessons are designed to accommodate 60 minute class periods but are easily adaptable to longer or shorter periods. Depending on the prior knowledge and skill sets of your students, you may need to teach some lessons over the course of more than one class period to allow time to review (or in some cases, teach for the first time) concepts students should have learned in elementary and middle school (as we know, not all students have had consistent access to high quality sex education throughout their academic careers). All of these lessons could easily be extended to be taught over two or more hours or multiple class periods either by incorporating the homework assignment into the lesson, diving deeper into the content, or by allowing additional time for questions and responses.
The Units Are:
- Expectations, Brave Space, and Reliable Resources
- Reproductive Anatomy
- Sexuality and Gender Identity
- Sexually Transmitted Infections
- Pregnancy and Pregnancy Options
- Risk Reduction
- Relationships
What else is included?
Inclusive Sex Education also includes an introduction with information on how to best approach teaching sex education from an inclusive and trauma-informed approach. There is also a vocabularyguide to common words used by the LGBTQ+ community, examples of how to talk about anatomy using gender-inclusive terminology, and samples of real student questions from the anonymous question jar and how to answer them.
Our new third edition incorporates feedback from the Adolescent Sexual Health Working Group (ASHWG) curricula review and includes access to a Google Drive folder that includes Google Documents for all student assignments and digital adaptations of many activities (for ease of use in virtual learning), as well as additional resources. These resources are also routinely updated to ensure teachers are equipped with the most up-to-date materials and information.
Inclusive Sex Education is designed to be your one-stop curriculum guide to teach an entire sex education course. Inclusive Sex Education is California Healthy Youth Act compliant, aligned to the California Health Framework, and covers all of the California State Standards for Growth, Development, and Sexual Health grades 9-12.
Training and Professional Development
Trainings can be customized to meet your school site needs and are currently being offered virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the trainings offered include:
- Understanding Gender Diversity
- Intersectional Sexuality
- Becoming a Sex Educator and Teaching Inclusive Sex Education