Call to Action: Contact Downey Unified, Tell Them to Have Parents on Sex-Ed Curriculum Committee

A victory in before the Downey Unified School Board! But there’s still more work to do! PLEASE HELP!

As you know, last year the Downey Unified School Board voted to implement the “Teen Talk” curriculum, a radical, very graphic sex-ed program. MassResistance parents began a campaign to stop it.

Over the past six months, CA MassResistance activists emails, phone calls, and attendance at the school board meetings have really paid off!

We are pleased to report that the School Board members and staff have announced that they will convene another sex-ed curriculum committee to discuss the changes that need to be made to the curriculum!

Here’s the statement that Superintendent John Garcia wrote to our team leaders:

"To demonstrate that the community feedback process works as designed in our Board Policy, all of you came to our Board of Education meetings and provided input, and we ultimately are revising the curriculum as a result of your input."

But there’s still one big problem. The school administration has said that the committee for the new sex-ed curriculum will not include parents!

Downey parents and residents at curriculum committee meeting last year

This is precisely what caused all the issues the last time. It will consist of basically the same kind of people who thought that “Teen Talk” was just fine for children.

Instead of having parents directly involved, they want to do what they did last time: Let parents “review and give feedback on” a presentation of the new curriculum once it’s already decided. That process didn’t work before and won’t work again.

There is no excuse for leaving parents out of the curriculum design process. In fact, part of the reason why we complained to the school board is that there was so little input, transparency, and decision-making to reflect the concerns from the community to begin with!

We need as many of you as possible to continue putting pressure on the school board to the do the right thing: Set up a completely new committee to review and prepare the sex ed curriculum and include Downey parents in the process.

CA MassResistance Parent Meeting in Downey

What you can do right now!

The Downey Unified School Board will be meeting this Tuesday, April 21, at 4:00 pm. The meeting will be held via video. The link to join the Board meeting will be posted HERE no later than 3 pm on April 21. (Scroll down to the April 21, 2020 meeting.) Other info on the meeting is posted there now.

You can email a comment that will be read at the meeting:

Persons who want to comment on any topic are invited to submit comments via email to publiccomment@dusd.net on or before April 21 by 4:00 pm.

All public comments will be read into the record at the meeting.

Please limit comments to 300 words or less (3 minutes).

HERE are some talking points:

1. The Teen Talk sex-ed curriculum had numerous problems, and it's good that the Downey School Board is scrapping that sex-ed curriculum

2. MassResistance organized parents and the community to contact the school board to reject Teen Talk. They need to keep listening to the parents.

3. The biggest problem now is that the Superintendent, Dr. John Garcia and Assistant Superintendent Roger Brossmer, will not allow Downey parents on the new sex-ed curriculum committee. That is wrong!

4. There needs to be more transparency in this process, not less. Parents need to be on the new sex-ed curriculum committee.

5. Some people in Downey, CA have already volunteered to serve on the committee. There is no reason for the School Board to leave out Downey parents, as they had done the last time.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

California MassResistance