Franklin schools halt sexual harassment curriculum after survey asks for students' orientation

The survey was given to students participating in the Shifting Boundaries program, which aims to educate middle-schoolers about dating violence and sexual harassment. Students participate in the program during their health class with parental permission.

Connie Jo Hutchinson said her sixth-grader came home saying other students told him they had to take a test and answer whether they were gay or straight. When Hutchinson asked school officials about it, they said there wasn’t a test.

When Hutchinson’s son went to health class, he was given the survey. He thought it was a test.

“An 11-year-old isn’t going to shove the paper back and say, ‘I don’t want to do this,’” Hutchinson said.

The survey, which is anonymous, asks students to check all options that apply to them: bisexual, gay, fluid, heterosexual, lesbian, pansexual, queer, questioning, prefer not to disclose and self-identify.

Other questions ask students for their age, gender, ethnicity and race.

Hutchinson said students might not understand the different orientations. Her son, for example, knows what “straight” means but didn’t know what “heterosexual” means, she said.

She said the consent form she signed didn’t mention sexual orientation or data collection.

The state Department of Health and Human Services contracts with the N.C. Coalition Against Sexual Assault for training and technical assistance in sexual assault prevention. The coalition wrote the survey for the Shifting Boundaries program, which is funded by a grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Monika Johnson-Hostler, executive director with N.C. CASA, said the question about sexual orientation was included to create a data set showing who participates in the Shifting Boundaries program and which marginalized communities do or do not receive that education.

The data is then used to create culturally relevant programming and create safer communities for youth.

“Our culture is so much broader than race and ethnicity now,” Johnson-Hostler said. Students who feel unsafe and vulnerable are more likely to run away or become transient, which puts them at greater risk for sexual violence.

Shifting Boundaries is taught in 13 school districts across the state.

Franklin County Schools said in a statement that the Shifting Boundaries program would stop until the sexual orientation question is removed from the survey and the consent form allows parents to view the curriculum before signing.

Johnston-Hostler said the coalition has removed the question from the survey.

“Everybody has the right to raise their child the way they want to, and we will be accommodating to that,” Johnson-Hostler said.