Newmarket parents have some homework of their own to do as their children head back to school next week.
When the bell rings on Tuesday, Sept. 3, local school boards will roll out a revised elementary health and physical education program for students in grades 1 to 8, released last Wednesday by the Ontario government after a nearly $1-million public consultation exercise.
The newly revised curriculum replaces the revamped health and phys-ed program introduced in 2015 by the Liberals that the then-incoming Conservative government scrapped last summer to make good on a Doug Ford campaign promise.
But while the Education Ministry’s 2019-2020 curriculum largely mirrors the 2015 version, there are some notable exceptions in the document: new and updated content about consent, body image, and online safety, vaping and the effects and risks of cannabis, mental health, including a new section on social-emotional learning skills, concussions, and that parents can exempt their children from class when the discussion involves topics related to human development and sexual health.
For example, parents can exempt their children from classroom learning about the following topics under the human development and sexual health umbrella:
- Grade 1 - Proper names of body parts, including genitalia; Using positive language when describing their bodies.
- Grade 2 - Stages of development; appreciating how the body works and what it can do.
- Grade 3 - Healthy relationships, caring behaviours, bullying, consent; physical and social-emotional development, building a healthy body image; visible/invisible differences, respect.
- Grade 4 - Puberty, including physical changes, personal hygiene and care; emotional and social impact.
- Grade 5 - Reproductive system; menstruation, sperm production; factors affecting their understanding of themselves and personal identity, including sexual orientation.
- Grade 6 - Impacts of viewing sexually explicit media; challenging various stereotypes (for example, based on sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, culture, mental health and abilities).
- Grade 7 - Preventing sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections (STBBIs) and pregnancy (for example, abstinence, contraception, condom use).
- Grade 8 - Decisions about sexual activity and sources of support related to sexual health (for example, parents, family, health professionals); gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, knowing and appreciating oneself (to be addressed in the second part of the year).
Newmarket Parent Network parent advocate Shameela Hoosen-Shakeel said the health and physical education curriculum includes information that is important for children and teenagers and covers many aspects of their health and well-being.
“The children whose parents decide that they should not learn the information in the curriculum will be missing out,” Hoosen-Shakeel said. “They will also likely be receiving misinformation from their peers or online. Opting out will eventually hurt those children.”
“Teachers have the training to teach the material. If they feel that a student poses a question or concern that is outside of their scope of comfort or knowledge, teachers can ask their administrators for supports to be brought in to help,” she added. “The Conservatives’ curriculum is very similar to the Liberals’' version from 2015. It was a complete waste of taxpayer dollars to make only minor changes. It's infuriating, to say the least.”
In a statement provided to NewmarketToday, the York Catholic District School Board said parents in its Catholic schools “have the right to remove their child from the program if they believe it is in the child’s best interests, and they accept the responsibility of providing an education in sexuality in the home”.
“York Catholic recognizes that parents are the primary educators of their children and, as a result, our Family Life Education program includes comprehensive communication between school and home detailing the contents of the program,” the statement said. “All changes to this curriculum will be fully addressed through the Family Life Education program. These changes will be incorporated into our existing curriculum, which is consistent with the Catholic faith and the requirements of the Ministry of Education.”
The Catholic board also said it welcomed the additional content in the tweaked program, specifically as it relates to consent, healthy relationships, mental health and emotional learning, cyber-safety, healthy eating and body image, concussions, and vaping and cannabis.
York Region District School Board could not be reached for comment by the time of publication.
School boards have until Nov. 30, 2019 to develop and implement policies and procedures for exemptions, and the grades nine to 12 health and physical education program remains unchanged.
Boards of education were instructed to teach the older 1998 curriculum for the 2018-2019 school year, which did not include such things as same-sex relationships, or cyberbulling, while the government carried out what it called historic outreach to gain feedback from the public and experts, and review the latest research.
"This modernization will keep kids safe in and outside of the classroom," newly minted Education Minister Stephen Lecce said in an Aug. 21 statement. "Ontario is a leader in critical areas including mental health, cyber safety, and consent, underscoring our commitment to building an education system that prioritizes inclusion, safety, and respect."
The province is partnering with School Mental Health Ontario to enhance learning about mental health in the curriculum, along with the Ontario Physical and Health Education Association to help support educators on implementing the revised curriculum, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, NDP MPP Marit Stiles, who represents Toronto’s Davenport riding and is the opposition education critic, said last week at a news conference that the Doug Ford government “is in free-fall and they’ve felt again that many Ontarians did not vote for a government that was going to cut classrooms, fire teachers and education workers, and roll back a sex-ed curriculum”.
“I think they (Ontario government) are feeling that, and that they felt the pressure from families across this province who said we’re not going to stand for this,” she said. “I think we do need to remember that there was a lost year and a million dollars spent for a political game, for an exercise in ideology instead of really focusing on what’s best for students and student safety.”
Organizations such as Children’s Mental Health Ontario lauded the classroom instruction around mental health and mental well-being that will begin in Grade 1.
For more information on Ontario's revised health and physical education curriculum, including parental resources, visit here.
