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Chicago Public Schools’ health education ‘scope and sequence’ includes teaching pre-kindergarteners to “correctly identify body parts typically considered private including nipples, penis, anus and vulva”; requires first graders to define “gender identity”; tells third graders that “sex is assigned at birth”; and introduces fifth graders to “puberty blocker medications.”
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Chicago Public Schools’ Personal Health and Safety Education & Sexual Health Education Scope and Sequence includes teaching pre-kindergarteners to “correctly identify body parts typically considered private (genitals),” teaches first graders about “gender identity” and introduces fifth graders to “puberty blocker medications that transgender young people may use.”
The Pre-Kindergarten Personal Health and Safety Education Unit Plan includes lessons about family structure and teaches that “no one type of family is better than another” and “all family structures are valid. In the Understanding our Bodies unit, children in pre-K learn about “basic anatomy” to “correctly identify body parts typically considered private (genitals), including nipples, anus, vulva, and penis.” They are also taught why it is important for them to know the correct names for private parts —according to the unit plan, this “this lesson supports Erin’s Law requirements.”
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The Grade 1 Personal Health and Safety Education Unit Plan includes teaching students to “define gender, gender identity and gender role stereotypes” and “name at least two things they’ve been taught about gender role stereotypes, and how those things may limit people of all genders.”
Students will also “discuss the concept of gender so that students can then understand gender identity and gender role stereotypes” and “reflect on things like colors, toys, and careers.” The goal for the lesson is for students to “recognize that gender should not be a limiting factor in being themselves.”
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The Grade 2 Personal Health and Safety Education Unit Plan features a lesson that teaches students about gender stereotypes and that they can “advocate for change and will have an opportunity to apply what they learn to create gender neutral packaging for common children’s toys.”
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The Grade 3 Personal Health and Safety Education Unit Plan includes a lesson that teaches students to “explain the difference between sex assigned at birth and gender identity.” Students will “engage with the text to expand their understanding of what it can mean to be transgender and the concept of gender expression.”
It defines “transgender” as “when a person’s gender identity (how they feel) is different from what doctors/midwives assigned to them when they were born (sex assigned at birth).”
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The Grade 4 Personal Health & Safety Education Unit Plan includes the use of “The Gender Snowperson to teach students about the concepts of “gender identity, sexual orientation, sex assigned at birth, and gender expression.”
The unit also includes a lesson that states that students will “learn the names and functions of reproductive anatomy for most people assigned male at birth and most people assigned female at birth.” The accompanying document labels the male body as “Body with Penis and Testicles” and the female body as “Body with Ovaries.”
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The Grade 5 Personal Health and Safety Education Unit Plan includes the use of the Gender Unicorn to “explore the concepts of gender identity, sex assigned at birth, gender role stereotypes, and gender expression.”
The unit also includes teaching students the “names and functions of reproductive anatomy for most people assigned male at birth and most people assigned female at birth” and to make the “connection between puberty and gender identity and be introduced to puberty blocker medications that transgender young people may use.”
The unit document titled Gr 5 L 3 Reproductive Systems Worksheet labels the male reproductive system “People with Testicles” and the female body “People with Ovaries.”
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The Grade 6 Sexual Health Education Unit Plan includes a lesson teaching students about pronoun use including the Gender Unicorn. Unit videos include an optional one on condoms and how to use them effectively.
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Worthy of note, only 31% of elementary school students in Chicago Public Schools were proficient in reading in the spring of 2024. In math, only 19% of Chicago third through eighth graders were proficient.
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