OB-GYN worried about sex ed classes as gov’t reviews third-party presentations

When Dr. George Carson heard about the provincial government’s pause on third-party presentations in schools, his first thought was it was the wrong thing to do.

In August, as part of its announcement around schools, the then-education minister announced there would be a pause on any third parties who weren’t a representative of the ministry or health authority doing presentations in sex education classes.

It was an expansion of the pause on Planned Parenthood presentations that started in June.

Carson has been an obstetrician and gynecologist in Saskatchewan for more than 30 years and he has done presentation to classrooms in the past. He said the first was to his son’s class.

“It was actually quite fun,” said Carson.

“First, obviously, the issue was all sex should be consensual, but second if it’s going to happen and you don’t want to have a pregnancy, let’s talk about the methods that are available for that.”

The way the pause stands now, Carson wouldn’t be able to go back into a classroom to share his many years of expertise.

“I have an enormous respect for teachers, but teachers can’t be experts on everything and so, if it’s consistent with the curriculum, it makes sense to me that, from time to time, the teachers should ask somebody else to come and present within their area of expertise,” he explained, also pointing out some teachers aren’t comfortable with the subject matter either.

Having an expert come in should improve the students’ education, said Carson.

The doctor also pointed out that Saskatchewan has among the highest teen pregnancy and STI rates in the country, describing it as teens “failing the skills test.” So he said if that’s what the situation is when experts were allowed to come into classrooms, he believes those indicators will get worse as experts are excluded.

“If that expertise is shut off (and) we’re already doing badly, I assume we’ll do worse,” said Carson.

Instead of taking away from classrooms, Carson said the provincial government should be figuring out how to add and improve teens’ education in this area.

Other experts have expressed their concern about the pause, including worries from those who teach about identifying and dealing with sexual abuse.

The third-party pause was not included in the Parents’ Bill of Rights passed in September, Education Minister Jeremy Cockrill said that bit would be dealt with in regulations.

Cockrill said the government is still in the information-gathering phase of the review. He said the ministry is actively having conversations with school divisions and other stakeholders about the materials they’ve used in the past and what they might want in the future.

“At the heart of it we want to make sure that we can ensure that there’s a process that parents can trust what is being delivered in the classroom,” said Cockrill.

It won’t be a situation where all materials will be approved by the ministry, as Cockrill said that wouldn’t be very efficient. He said they want to create a framework for divisions to use.

“We have 17 locally elected divisions that, we want to trust those school divisions to be able to make decisions in their communities for their parents and families and students,” said the minister.

Cockrill couldn’t explain how the ministry will evaluate what is appropriate at what age, saying it hadn’t got to that point yet.

“The age appropriateness discussion is a challenging one because what may be appropriate to one person may not be appropriate to another person,” he explained.

Cockrill also said that, as enshrined in the Parents’ Bill of Rights, parents will have to be told about what’s being taught in sex ed and if they still feel it’s inappropriate for their child, they will be able to take their kids out of the class.

When it comes to the concerns about the pause taking away from classrooms, Cockrill said there are organizations in Saskatchewan that do excellent work around things like preventing sexual violence.

“Certainly we want to make sure that that expertise, where age appropriate, can be leveraged and used by teachers and school divisions but we do have to make sure that we have a process to make sure that material is age appropriate and that parents have the ability to know what’s being delivered in the classroom,” said Cockrill.

The minister couldn’t give a timeline on when the review will be finished but hoped it would be done before the next school year.

“We want to make sure that we have a good process that parents can have confidence in and I think that will take a little bit of time just to iron out,” said Cockrill.