Family Health and Human Sexuality Lesson for 8th graders uses pizza to teach consent; asks students to list their sexual likes and dislikes as if they are pizza toppings and uses “kissing” and “giving oral” as examples

Parents in Enfield, Connecticut are raising serious concerns about a recent assignment given to 8th grade students that uses pizza as a metaphor for sex and compares pizza toppings to sexual likes and dislikes. It cites “kissing” and “giving oral” as examples of pizza toppings and then asks students to list their sexual likes and dislikes and boundaries.

The assignment is entitled “Pizza & Consent” and literally says at the beginning, “we can use pizza as a metaphor for sex!”

According to parents who contacted us, the school quickly removed the assignment from their website.

Brie Quartin, the district’s Health and Physical Education Coordinator, offered this explanation and apology in an email to at least one parent who raised concerns:

The incorrect version, as opposed to the revised version of this assignment was mistakenly posted on our grade 8 curriculum page, and was inadvertently used for instruction to grade 8 Health classes. I caught the error after our curriculum revision in June, but failed to post the intended version. I own that, and apologize for the error. The correct version of the assignment is for students to work in small groups to craft a pizza with toppings (no behaviors associated with said toppings) that would make everyone happy/comfortable using non-verbal communication only. Students are then asked to reflect and discuss how thoughts or feelings can be confusing or miscontrued [sic], if we rely on non-verbal cues/communication alone. The parallel to be taught here is that when discussing pizza topping it is important that your preferences are clearly communicated to avoid any misunderstanding. This discussion then leads into how students can identify when consent it either present or not.  

Another parent told us, “I’m not sure how a teacher accidentally asks for the personal sexual preferences of 8th graders without any indication it is completely inappropriate to do such a thing?”

Because parents were not allowed to attend the school board meeting in person where they would have spoken about this, they took to YouTube to respond to the board. The district cited mask compliance as the reason for the shift to zoom meetings.

Below are two of those videos:

The father in the second video talks about the pizza assignment and reads contradictory statements made by school officials. He also shares specific concerns about assignments and handouts in other classes in the district.

The pizza assignment has a part at the end that says:

For those of ya’ll who don’t like pizza or sex at all, feel free to draw out another food favorite or include non-sexual activities.