Starting family life & sex education programs: a health agency's perspective

Family life education in California ninth and tenth grades

Superintendents , principals and family life education teachers in all California school districts having a ninth and/or 10th grade were surveyed about their family life education ( FLE ) efforts. Responses were obtained from 80% of the superintendents , 45% of the principals and 39% of the FLE teachers who were sent questionnaires. While most superintendents reported the existence of an FLE program in at least one district school, the surveys revealed that less than one-fourth of ninth graders and less than one-third of 10th graders received such instruction during the 1981-1982 academic year. District decisions to offer FLE were reported to be most strongly influenced by school faculty and administrators while the decision not to offer FLE was most strongly influenced by clergy and special interest groups. More than half of the FLE teachers who returned surveys taught FLE as a unit within another course. Teachers generally covered a variety of curriculum topics, with units/courses most likely to address human development, physiology and sexual disease and least likely to deal with value-laden topics such as premarital intercourse, sexual behavior and sexual preference. However, the greater number of class hours devoted to FLE , the greater the chance that these issues were covered in the curriculum. Finally, the data reveal that evaluation of FLE courses was relatively limited in scope and was largely subjective in many schools.