Sadly, Bayfield School District just eliminated sex education throughout the school district. On Feb. 14, the school board voted to change the policy Health and Family Life/Sex Education or IHAM, removing all mentions of “comprehensive” and “sex education.”

The school board has done this quietly – and seemingly intentionally – to avoid public attention.

The school district adopted a middle school curriculum in September 2022 that didn’t meet the requirements of district policy regarding comprehensive sex education, never mentioning the conflict. Now, five months later, the board quietly proposed and approved the policy change, with no open discussion of details. But the proposed changes were attached to the meeting agendas.

Colorado first passed “comprehensive sex education” legislation in 2013. Since then, there have been significant decreases in teen pregnancy, teen abortions and sexual activity among high school students.

After contacting the board regarding the change, thinking the board objected to the “comprehensive” language in the policy, I received a response from the board that quoted state law out of context and presented objections to a distorted characterization of sex education as “focusing on the mechanics of and myriad types of human sexual encounters and varieties of sexual intercourse and the moral appropriateness of such encounters.”

It became apparent that the board objected to sex education. Period. Despite the data and widespread acceptance.

It is a disservice to our students and our community for Bayfield School District to ignore the data to take such a prudish and backward step.

Jason Mendoza

Bayfield