Virginia Regulatory Town Hall
Agency
Department of Education
 
Board
State Board of Education
 
Guidance Document Change: The guidance document "Model Policies Concerning Instructional Materials with Sexually Explicit Content" was developed in conjunction with stakeholders in order to comply with SB656 (2022).
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8/3/22  10:30 pm
Commenter: Anonymous

Strongly oppose
 

I agree with the comments made by the Virginia ACLU that any model policy under such a broad determination of “sexually explicit”  is “likely to lead teachers, librarians, and school administrators to restrict access to instructional materials that include or are written by LGBTQ people.” This information is necessary, lifesaving, and important to building empathy, understanding, and tolerance among our children and communities. This increases the burden on teachers to an unsustainable extent to have to identify multiple levels of content that are acceptable to many possible iterations of students when we are already facing a teacher shortage. What happens if parents also object to the alternative content? This will damage our community irreparably if the model policy is drafted under such a broad construct without first repairing the structural issues by understanding which communities will be harmed. 

CommentID: 127073