On April 20, 2021, Governor Doug Ducey issued an executive order directing the State Board of Education to adopt or amend rules relating to K-12 schools’ adoption of sex education curriculum by June 30, 2021. The Board beat the deadline by two days and adopted the new rules at their meeting on Monday, June 28.
Did you know? Of the eleven members currently serving on the State Board of Education, 6 are serving despite the fact that their terms have expired!
The Governor vetoed a popular bill sponsored by Sen. Nancy Barto, SB 1456, which would have required a school district’s governing board to develop procedures under which parents would have the opportunity to opt their children into education regarding sexuality, gender identity or gender expression and issued Executive Order 2021-11 instead. The order specifically directed the Board to:
a. Require schools to have all meetings of committees authorized for reviewing and selecting the sex education course of study to be publicly noticed at least two weeks before occurring and to be subject to open meeting law;
b. Make any proposed local sex education course of study available and accessible for review and public comment at least 60 days before the local governing body decides whether to approve the course of study;
c. Require local education agencies (LEAs) to conduct at least two public hearings within the 60-day period and allow public comments to include written, oral and electronic comments.
d. Require LEAs to make approved sex education curricula available for parental review, both online and in-person, at least two weeks before any instruction is offered.
e. Require LEAs to make any existing sex education course of study available and accessible for review both online and in person by June 30, 2021.
f. The EO states that it should not be construed to require an LEA to provide sex education instruction.
g. The EO states the regulations adopted by the Board apply to sex education instruction provided after school hours.
The Board opened rulemaking procedures at the May 24, 2021 Meeting.
A virtual public hearing was held on June 17, 2021. The Board received two public comments at the hearing in support of the rules and two written comments were also submitted in support of the rules.
The document identifies what paragraph of the EO the change is conforming to.
R7-2-303 Sex Ed June 2021