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Legislature Considers Sex Education Training for Parents

Senator Stuart Reid

State legislators debated the merits of creating training courses for parents on how to teach sex education to their children Wednesday during the Education Interim committee meeting.

While the Education interim committee did not move on the draft legislation proposed by Republican Senator Stuart Reid, the debate over it was robust. The plan would require the Utah State Board of Education to offer training classes and online resources to parents that would help them understand how and when to teach their children about human sexuality. Reid says the proposal is aimed at providing parents with good science so that they can teach the subject in the light of their own values in their own homes.

“Our first instinct should not be to have someone that we don’t even know teaching the most intimate issues relating to human sexuality. That should not be our first instinct,” Reid said. 

But Republican Representative Johnny Anderson made the argument that this kind of information is readily available online already.

“This seems to be, to me to be, a government solution for a problem that really isn’t ours to own,” Anderson said.

Unlike last year’s sex education bill that was vetoed by the governor, this draft legislation does not change how sex education is currently taught in public schools. Instead, Senator Reid says this will give parents tools to teach sex education in the home.

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