Parents say classroom sex education went too far
May 28th, 2008 @ 9:11pm
Sandra Yi reporting
A middle school health teacher is under investigation, accused of teaching too much about sex.
Parents say the teacher is saying crude and explicit things that don't belong in the classroom. Dewayne Smith says, "These are our children, and we're not going to breach the firewall of innocence."
Parents say sex education went too far inside the classroom full of 8th-graders at Fort Herriman Middle School. Suzanne Johnson told us, "She explained how the teacher talked about masturbation. Girl masturbation, boys, the wrong ways … the right ways to have sex, the wrong ways to have sex. How long to make it last. I mean, disgusting."
"What bothered me is that, not only did we get into discussions of masturbatory activity, but we got into explicit descriptions of homosexual acts," Smith said.
Parents say the teacher also showed students fliers with explicit cartoon images.
Seventh-grader Marissa Poloei had a friend in the class. She told us, "He thought it was gross and stuff, and she showed a lot of pictures of stuff."
A spokesperson for the Jordan School District would not comment on the allegations but said there is an investigation. The teacher has been put on administrative leave, but parents don't think that's enough.
Johnson says, "We want her fired. We want her never to teach ever again."
Some of the parents plan to meet with administrators at the school tomorrow. They've invited Rep. Carl Wimmer to attend.
Again, the district said it cannot comment on personnel issues. We were not able to contact the teacher for her side of the story.