Schools sex education falls short, South Bay high school students say

Editor’s Note: This article was written for Mosaic Vision, an independent journalism training program for high school students who report and photograph stories under the guidance of professional journalists.

South Bay high school students overwhelming rated their state-mandated sexual health education a C or D, or had too little instruction to judge, according to an informal Mosaic survey.

They said lessons didn’t cover elements of the state’s curriculum framework, were brief and at times awkward, and introduced sex ed late in high school after some felt they already had enough knowledge about it.

“Liz,” now a freshman in college, was sexually assaulted at age 16 by her then-partner — before her high school in San Jose offered students in her grade sex education. The attack led her to doubt and blame herself. Mosaic is not using her real name because she is a victim of sexual assault.

“I had to Google, ‘Was I sexually assaulted?’” she said. She opted out of the health course in her senior year, which she felt came too late. She thought there was nothing left to learn after being sexually assaulted. “I wish [I’d been] taught so I wouldn’t feel like I was being irrational when I knew I had been violated,” she said.

Passed in 2016, California’s Healthy Youth Act requires school districts to provide age-appropriate, medically accurate information covering a wide range of topics, including sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, healthy relationships and sexual abuse. The state relies on local school districts to assess how well their curriculums follow its instruction framework.

Ava Chiao and Melissa Wheeler, teachers overseeing comprehensive sexual health education for the East Side Union High School District, say the course must include the options that the state’s health education framework deems legally available to students.

Both said the main purpose of the course is to help students make informed decisions. “I feel like it should always be prioritized. Regardless of what our beliefs are, the legislation requires that those options need to be shared with students,” Wheeler said.

Chiao added that if she was a teen, she’d want to know her options and be informed so she could “make those choices regardless of what’s going on politically.”

To discover how South Bay students view their sexual health instruction, Mosaic prepared an online questionare and asked them to grade their lessons. The resulting snapshot from the 21 students who responded shows that the vast majority gave instruction a C or D, with only a few giving a B or A.

Vish Kapu, a Yerba Buena High School senior, graded his instruction a C because in seventh grade it was more like an independent study, where a guest speaker monitored and gave a book to read on sexual health with no explanations.

He said the curriculum was “a little jumbled,” leaving students without enough information to understand lessons.

Angelo Idanan, a Silver Creek High sophomore, gave his lessons a D because they didn’t include clear explanations in middle school about consensual intercourse, which is not a topic the state has schools to cover. Instead, the course focused more on sexuality, protection, and other related topics. “We just learn the vague idea of what sex is and how to have it safely,” Idanan said.

David Jayme, a Milpitas High sophomore, graded his two-week program in ninth grade an A because it was comprehensive. “I remember it really well because my teacher gave good descriptions and it was a good learning space since everyone was mature,” said Jayme.

Not many students shared Jayme’s experience.

Some students expressed discomfort in the classroom due to jokes and outbursts. “The way it’s presented is really important,” said Kimberlie Yoa, a senior at Piedmont Hills High.

Eric Ngo of Evergreen High School said that comprehensive sex ed should be introduced earlier. Already in his senior year, he has yet to take the high school course. “People are getting in relationships and such even as early as middle school so it would be wise to keep them educated,” Ngo said.

Students like Zoe Tong suggested beefing up middle school curriculums. “I only learned about HIV and [sexually transmitted infections] and how they can be transmitted,” said Tong, a junior at Merrill F. West High in Tracy. “If I were to choose a topic to learn more about it would be pregnancy.”

Perryn Reis, associate director of Health Connected, agrees there’s always room for improvement. The non-profit Health Connected provides sexual health instruction for some school districts, including Sequoia Union High School District and San Jose Unified School District.

“Schools have to meet the mandate, but they struggle with giving sex ed the time it really warrants,” Reis said. “It’s understandable given how much content all the subjects demand, especially as students still need to make up time for lost education during the pandemic.”

Jasmine Sessoms is a sophomore at Silver Creek High School in San Jose.