Earlier this week the EHS Spectrums group met with Dr. Reikowski on the topic of the sexual education in our school. There has been much debate over whether the sex ed offered to us students is effective. Some issues with these classes that have been acknowledged by Spectrums are that they do not teach consent, ways of having safe sex, different genders and sexualities, or means of STI testing. Another issue is that our classes strictly teach a heteronormative and cisnormative curriculum, meaning that students who don’t identify as heterosexual or cisgender are missing out on an opportunity to learn.

Spectrums president Jason Castillo says, “We are trying to reform sex ed so it will be more inclusive and cover broader terms. I know some topics aren’t even covered, like consent, and that is what we want to talk to [Dr. Reikowski] about.”

Agreeing with this statement, president Naomi Untinen states that the reason Spectrums is trying to change the curriculum is because “it’s something that everyone needs. Not just the queer or trans kids, but everyone. Information about sex, relationships, gender, and sexuality is going to lead us through the rest of our lives and Spectrums believes that our curriculum should at least somewhat prepare us for it.”

The actual meeting with Reikowski seemed to go well. Untinen says, “At the meeting, Dr. Reikowski read over our proposal and we talked a bit on each point. She admitted that she doesn’t know what the health teachers are planning for the curriculum, but that we have raised her interest in it and she is interested in continuing the conversation not only with us, but with the health teachers and other principals.”

Castillo said the meeting went well, and that Dr. Reikowski was very supportive of their ideas, but he agreed with Untinen in that she wasn’t very familiar with the health curriculum. Castillo also stated that Reikowski mentioned that she knew the health teachers were writing a new curriculum, but that she didn’t know how far along in the process they were.

Some specific things that Spectrums would like to see changed are the cisnormality of the class and how it is seemingly shown from a male’s perspective. A major point that they would like to be taught is consent, which is rarely taught in sex ed classrooms.

Castillo says that teaching consent is important to Spectrums because “it doesn’t just apply to the LGBTQ+ community, it applies to everybody.”

Lastly, Untinen says, “I would just like to say that I hope everyone realizes how truly important of an issue this is. It’s not just to a small portion of the school either, it affects the health and wellbeing of literally every student at Eagan High School.”