Oil City School Board members were asked Monday to consider an alternative curriculum to several lessons on sexuality and sexual harassment that have been taught to middle school students.
Concerns and questions about those lessons were raised at a school board meeting in April.
Evelyn Wheeler, an Oil City resident with a child enrolled in the Oil City School District, recommended the Choosing the Best curriculum, which is taught by the Life Center in Franklin, as an option for middle school and high school families instead of the We Care Elementary Program the district has used.
“The program does not discuss religion or politics in any context and students are not judged, especially on hot button issues,” Wheeler said.
She also said the Choosing the Best curriculum encourages involvement and participation from parents.
Currently, the Life Center teaches Choosing the Best to ninth-grade students at Franklin High School, and the curriculum is free to the school districts that use it, Wheeler said.
She noted that it is a research-based curriculum that has been found to be medically accurate by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
In April, parents contacted school board members due to lessons on gender identity and sexuality taught to sixth- and eighth-grade students in a class parents were told in a letter from the district focused on the difference between bullying and sexual harassment.
The lessons were taught by the PPC Violence Free Network using the We Care Elementary Program curriculum created by Prevent Child Abuse Vermont.
In April, Superintendent Lynda Weller said the new lessons were indirectly the result of a Title IX investigation into claims of sexual harassment at the district last year.
Going forward, Weller said, the district would provide more informative letters to parents and allow them to opt out of the lessons.
Board members said they would pass on Wheeler’s remarks to Weller, who is on vacation and didn’t attend Monday’s meeting.
In other business Monday, district business manager Susan Fisher said the tax rate for district residents will remain at 16.61 mills in the 2022-23 budget that is scheduled to be approved next week by the board.
Though the state budget is still being hammered out in Harrisburg, Fisher said she has been told it is likely the district will see an increase of about $185,000 in funding for the coming year, so she budgeted for that increase.
The homestead/farmstead exclusion rate will see an increase from about $305 this year to $397.33 in 2022-23, Fisher said.
A retirement request from longtime district employee Tim LaVan’s was on Monday’s agenda, and the board will formally approve LaVan’s request next week.
LaVan, a math teacher and the district’s current athletic director, has been with the district 32 years.
Board president Joe McFadden said the district has received a bid to upgrade the sign on the football field at a cost of $2,500. The board will vote on the bid at next week’s meeting.
Board members Fred Weaver, Tyler Johnson and Jon Piercy were absent Monday.
