California high school students are not receiving the same sexuality education across the state. Though the California Healthy Youth Act mandates comprehensive sexuality education to be taught, it is not regulated, and it is only taught once in high school.

According to Planned Parenthood, sex education is “often left up to school districts.” Upon interviewing counselors and health teachers from various schools in my school district, some do not teach sex education, while others cover every topic required by the California Healthy Youth Act.

Further, sex education is mandated to be taught once in high school (if it is taught), high school studets are not truly learning the contents of sex education. According to a research publication by Dartmouth College, “having the initial study and subsequent review or practice [of a lesson] be spaced out over time generally leads to superior learning.” Utilizing this research, sexual education needs to be taught repeatedly for students to truly understand the content of sexual education.

Our solution

To ensure California high school students’ sexual health is safe and supported, we must amend the California Healthy Youth Act. It must mandate that sexual education is taught every year of high school and sexual health teachers must attend regular trainings in order to provide comprehensive, inclusive, and culturally competent sexuality education.  

In order for this to happen, we must:

• Sign this petition so that it can be introduced to California State Legislators

• Go to sacpop.org/change and share our social media messages with the following hashtags: #SacPOP, #ChangeStartsWithUs