As a retired Registered Nurse, I am incredibly perplexed that children are being taught so much before they are mentally, emotionally and developmentally ready through our public school system. I am sure that Educators were required to take child growth and development. I believe that every single child—including and especially those struggling with sexual confusion—should be protected from harm and harassment. There is no question of that. And Virginia has a good anti-bullying law. But this new, proposed policy goes way beyond prevention and crosses the line into mandatory promotion of politicized, sexualized ideology.

I support these critically important model policies in order to protect children from inappropriate sexual content at school and to respect parents’ right to determine whether their children are exposed to this content. Please also make sure through this document that there are certain specific actions that every school MUST take in order to ensure sexually explicit materials are correctly identified and seen by parents first. I am concerned that, unless certain minimum standards are expressly mandated (as opposed to providing examples or suggestions), many schools may find ways around what they consider to be mere guidance.