CDC outlines adoption of LGBTQ curriculum
CDC’s "Division of Adolescent and School Health" wants nurses and teachers to promote "well-being and development" assessment tools
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are promoting a tool along with a set of LGBTQ curriculum measures for use by K-12 nurses and teachers.
The initial announcement tweeted by the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) did not go into detail:
A closer look at the materials points to “The Health Education Curriculum Analysis Tool (HECAT)” which DASH describes as “an assessment tool to help school districts, schools, and others conduct a clear, complete, and consistent analysis of health education curricula based on the National Health Education Standards and CDC’s Characteristics of an Effective Health Education Curriculum.”
“Results from HECAT can help schools or school districts select or develop appropriate and effective health education curricula, enhance existing curricula, and improve the delivery of health education,” the CDC’s DASH website says. “The HECAT can be customized to meet local community needs and conform to the curriculum requirements of the state or school district.”
The HECAT overview document is fairly straightforward and includes various module topics as well as six recommended health education standards that are not particularly eyebrow-raising.
Read the overview of HECAT.
Another tweet by the CDC’s DASH directly mentions an “LGBTQ self-inclusivity assessment tool.”
The document in DASH’s tweet is titled, “LGBTQ Inclusivity in Schools: A Self-Assessment Tool.” The target audience is broad, from school boards down to teacher aides.
The document includes a note that they reference “nongovernmental organizations” that appear to include multiple LGBTQ activist groups. Included in the list of resources are partisan/political activist groups like Human Rights Watch and the Human Rights Campaign.
Mainstream sources cited in the document include Scholastic, NPR and various medical groups like the American Medical Association.
Also included are LGBTQ activist groups like GLSEN, Gender Spectrum, and Teaching Tolerance, which is an arm of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) that was renamed several years ago to Learning for Justice.
Early on in the document is the “LGBTQ Inclusivity Continuum” which ranks the assessment taker on how inclusive they are. The top rank is “awesome ally.”
The assessment uses a series of statements with agreement responses rated from A to C. Here’s an example:
The assessments have different sections. Some are for all users while others are tailored for groups like administrators, policymakers, and more.
The self-assessment labeled for “all users” encourages adopting statements like “I cannot assume a student’s gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation.”
Additionally, the assessment statements encourage using only the “chosen names/pronouns” instead of using the correct biology-tied terms like girl, boy, boyfriend, and girlfriend.
It also encourages leaders to “advocate for LGBTQ inclusive and affirming materials in all school and classroom environments” and to participate in the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance.
In the section for teachers, there is a list of similar questions all seemingly aligned with creating special spaces for LGBTQ youth in the classroom.
“—My classroom or learning space includes visual labels (e.g., rainbow flags, pink triangles, unisex bathroom signs) marking it as a safe space for LGBTQ students”
The section on health services had a similar labeling theme but went into more detail about using preferred pronouns, the use of a student’s “chosen name,” and describing anatomy and sexual interactions “separate from gender.”
