Survey: 84% of Fairfax County parents oppose gender combined sex education classes
FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) — More than 84% of Fairfax County parents surveyed by Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) do not support gender-combined sex education, also known as Family Life Education, in grades 4 to 8, the Fairfax County Parents Association said.
The survey showed 3% of respondents felt “mixed” about the proposal, 1% of respondents were “unsure, and 11% supported the move.
The survey results were not shared by Fairfax County Public Schools, Fairfax County School Board Members, or the Family Life Education (FLE) Curriculum Advisory Committee proposing the recommendations, which has led to backlash from parent groups.
“Activists Buried FCPS Survey Showing Overwhelming Opposition to Combined Sex-Ed Classes,” the Fairfax County Parents Association said. “Activists on FCPS's Family Life Committee plan to recommend and push for a vote proposing combined gender sex-ed classes despite the survey showing 85% opposition to plan. The buried survey shows opposition to combined sex-ed is overwhelming, not only amongst parents (1,392 to 182) but also by teachers (100 to 14) and students (60-20).”
The nonpartisan parent group said that “the entire process is yet again another example of FCPS pretending to care about community input while running forward with its pre-determined narrative. Another example of why the community has lost trust in FCPS.”
Last November, 7News reported on the public input window of the FLE changes which is now closed.
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One change would teach sex education in gender-combined classes in 4th to 8th grade where all students will receive instruction on the menstrual cycle unless they are opted out by parents, and boys would be referred to as “assigned males at birth” and girls would be referred to as “assigned females at birth.”
In 10th grade, boys and girls would be in the same sex education class for all lessons which will include discussion on sexual orientation and gender identity and students would watch a video from PBS.
“We do have different body parts. But let me take a minute here and say that in addition to girl parts [and] boy parts, there are also people who have different parts or intermediate parts or people who do not fit in a traditional binary gender system of male or female. There are people who are trans or people who don’t have a gender,” the PBS video said.
You can watch the PBS Video here or below:
Some Fairfax County parents said this is going too far with some claiming this is gender ideology indoctrination.
“This school board has got to go,” Fairfax County parent Maria Sherwell told 7News. “This makes Loudoun look calm. I feel and I'm not alone, that their role is to take control of our children and push parents out of the room. It moves their agenda forward.”
Fairfax County father, James Thomas criticized Fairfax County School Board members for appointing several transgender activists to the FLE Curriculum Advisory Committee, including the President of the Transgender Education Association, to represent all Fairfax County families in policy changes to sex education in Virginia’s largest public school system.
“These activists have been pushing changes to FLE for two years now,” said Thomas. “The community survey data shows an overwhelming majority of FCPS parents don’t support their agenda.”
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“Often, when FCPS wants to do something, they appoint a committee filled with people with viewpoints to get the outcome they want, ask for community feedback, then ignore or manipulate the feedback,” Fairfax County Parents Association President Bonnie Myshrall told 7News. “It's a pattern we've seen repeatedly, from whether parents wanted in-person school, to the calendar survey with no ability to give meaningful feedback, and now FLE. If they truly wanted diverse viewpoints represented, they would seek out and welcome differing opinions. Instead, they take a victory lap for soliciting feedback even though they ignore it. It reinforces why there is a lack of trust between the system and families.”
Myshrall told 7News that Fairfax County Public Schools' FLE committee dismissed the survey data that showed overwhelming opposition to gender-combined sex education classes.
“The only thing obvious about the composition of the committee is that when they were faced with a survey that overwhelmingly was not in favor of something they were in favor of, they dismissed the survey,” said Myshrall. “Had the survey produced results that they agreed with, they no doubt would have sung its praises and used it as a basis to move forward.”
Robert Rigby with FCPS Pride said the new changes to the sex education curriculum are more inclusive, more informative and welcoming to LGBTQ+ students.
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"I think it’s good because it helps all kids,” said Rigby. “I don’t think queer kids will be put in a spot of having to out themselves when they aren’t ready to.”
The Fairfax County School Board is expected to act on the FLE recommendations this month, but Myshrall said if the school board adopts the changes, it wouldn’t be the first time the school board did so without majority support from Fairfax County residents.
“A majority of parents wanted schools open for in-person learning in the fall of 2020, but it was another six months before the doors were open to students,” said Myshrall. “This school board has repeatedly put politics ahead of students’ best interests. Test scores are down, enrollment is down, cost per pupil is up. Yet they waste time and money on things people don't care about.”
Some parents are asking, why didn’t the school board or FCPS make the survey results public.
“The whole point of the community input becomes a farse if you get it and discard it if it doesn't conform to what you hope you are getting and it doesn't conform to the path that you intend to take,” said Paulette Altmaier.
Altmaier is a Fairfax County resident and she is concerned about some of the proposed sex ed content which would refer to boys as “assigned males at birth” and girls would be referred to as “assigned females at birth.”
“Education should be grounded in facts, it should be grounded in reality,” said Altmaier. “It should not be grounded in ideology.”
Fairfax County parent Vanessa Hall said it’s important that the advisory committee is student-focused.
“Regarding Family Life Education, it's something that I think is really critical to help us protect children and enable them to thrive in our community,” said Hall. “It gives them tools to help them to understand their bodies and also to know how to protect their bodies and themselves from things like peer pressure, from drugs, and also to prevent teen pregnancy and STI, all of which are things that I think parents want our children to know how to advocate for themselves about.”
Hall was appointed to the FLE advisory committee which has been developing the proposed changes for the school board to consider.
“I felt really fortunate to be pulled onto the committee and I've been on the committee for two years,” said Hall. “The committee is made up of teachers, parents, students, health professionals, as well as people from the spiritual community. So, we really have a diverse group of people who are there at the table. And we don't always agree. You'd be surprised because I'm hearing in the news, 'oh, these are activists, they want to do this, that and the other' and first of all, we're not activists or parents or students or teachers, we're professionals. And we're really trying to have a civil discussion about a very sensitive topic. So we do have disagreements, but we make sure that we actively listen. And as necessary, we advocate for other viewpoints, but ultimately, the entire committee is really student-focused.”
Hall, who spoke to 7News from her personal experience, and not on behalf of the FLE advisory committee, said that some of the survey responses were “inconsistent.”
“Your [7News] coverage in November created probably about at least 1/3 of the responses, if not more to the survey,” said Hall. “So, 'thank you' for encouraging people to participate. What we just completed was reviewing responses to the survey. There were some inconsistencies in some of the responses. And it was also sometimes hard since the survey was anonymous to see whether people truly were community members, parents or students. And some of the answers were kind of not quite on topic or to the questions that were asked. But we reviewed all of those thoughtfully to understand what was being said. So the next step is the committee pulled that information together to present to the school board, and from what I gather, the next thing that will happen is the school board will vote on the recommendations.”
