Following a Schilling Show exposé—and subsequent national news attention—on graphic sex education in Albemarle County schools, a reticent Albemarle County School Board finally has taken action.

In response to public concerns over the Sexual Assault Resource Agency (SARA) presenting unapproved, sex positive, orgasm-centric videos to ninth-grade girls at Western Albemarle High School, SARA has been expelled from the schools.

An April 24 email from Albemarle County School Board Chair, Kate Acuff, explains why [emphasis added]:

From: Kate Acuff
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2018 9:11 AM
To: xxx; School Board
Cc: Pam Moran; Matthew Haas; Phil Giaramita
Subject: RE: WAHS and SARA Videos

Dear xxx:

The video you reference in your April 23 email was shown to 28 students on April 12 by a representative from SARA, who was visiting a Family Life class to make a presentation.  The video is not part of our curriculum.  It was highly offensive, entirely inappropriate for a student audience and school administrators called each family on April 13 to apologize for its use.

The video was not previously screened by the school, which was a violation of our standard practice. For several years, SARA has been involved in Family Life presentations at Western Albemarle High School without incident.  The video used on April 12 had not previously been part of SARA presentations.  While these two facts may explain why SARA’s materials were routinely approved, it does not excuse what happened.

As the result of this incident, SARA will no longer be involved with our schools.  We also have taken this opportunity to re-send to all principals our approved curricula and the procedures that must be followed at all times in our Family Life classes.  This includes the opportunity for members of the public to review all Family Life curriculum materials.

Thank you for sharing your opinion with the School Board.

Sincerely,

Kate Acuff, JD, PhD
Chair, Albemarle County School Board
Jack Jouett District

(This is a developing story. Updates to follow…)

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13 COMMENTS

  2. Great work, Rob. But to me, it begs a deeper question: How many of these things, whether related to this, or other forms of assaults on our kids’ minds are occurring, that we have not discovered, and are almost impossible to discover, because no one finds those things objectionable?

    For example, this story appeared in The Hill today. The only way something so preposterous would be put out there by a U.S. Senator is if he knows that our kids have never been taught the nature, implications and history of such policies. Or, or why this is an egregious violation of both the letter and underlying principles of our Constitution.

    “Sanders to announce proposal promising jobs to all Americans”
    http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/384554-sanders-to-announce-proposal-to-guarantee-jobs-to-all-americans

    Until a top-to-bottom audit of everything that is being “taught” to our kids is conducted, we will have no idea of the extent to which our “educational” system is betraying them, and us.

  8. This is the classic “you don’t want to see how the sausage is made” scenario. If most rational folks knew what really occurs not only in classrooms of gubmint schools BUT also in the administrations of those schools, their heads would explode. This is why homeschooling is so attractive. So, a school district in a wealthy part of Virginia uses a local non-profit to provide sex education services to ninth graders, and those sensitive sex ed topics were approved by a phys ed teacher? And the class materials are produced by some YouTube/MTV fifteen-minutes-of-fame-hack? Why didn’t we get the input of the woodshop instructor?

    Perhaps Vine superstar Bryan “Gratata” Silva could do the next video on substance abuse issues? The possibilities are endless!

    Now, as for Lawson, just check his profile page on the WAHS website. Three glaring and simple misspellings in a 7-line paragraph. THIS is the quality education your kids are receiving, folks.

  10. What would a lesbian activist be doing in a predominantly heterosexual classroom teaching women how to stimulate prostates?

    Especially when she writes on her blog about attending a bridal shower:

    “We were also slapped in the face over and over again with our hetero-normative culture. We somewhat expected it, having to have registered as a bride and “groom” and having to cross “groom” out on nearly everything we use to organize our planning. Really. How hard is it to just write PARTNER instead? We even tried to help everyone out by both painfully obviously sporting our bride to be bands, but “we both are” still became the phrase of the day as every single vendor tried to figure out who the bride was.

    The ‘Bride to Be’ bracelets we received at registration.

    Emily and I are both blessed to be constantly surrounded in environments where we don’t have to worry about non-inclusive language. Both of our jobs include teaching inclusive statements and de-gendering literally everything. We’re very used to having everyone around us share these values and make it a point to check themselves and challenge hetero-normativity. When we’re thrown into environments where people aren’t on that same level, it becomes utterly exhausting to have to constantly out ourselves and awkwardly correct people. The entire 3.5 hours of this bridal show were filled with just that.”

    http://letlovegroves2018.blogspot.com/2017/01/

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