Not in our kindergartens!

The Board of Education’s (BOE) newly announced curriculum mandates that teachers begin instructing children about HIV/AIDS in kindergarten. Yes, you read that right! We are appalled that students of this group — who should be learning their colors, alphabets, numbers, phonics, and the rudiments of reading and writing — will be taught about this serious, sexually transmittable disease in their classrooms.
Senator Serphin Maltese said he was “very distressed to hear about the new curriculum,” noting that kindergartners “are simply too young and emotionally immature to cope with such controversial material and teachers should not have to bear this burden. They should be concentrating on ABC’s, not HIV’s.”
This new curriculum was spawned in a 1987 directive from the State Board of Education that requires all elementary schools provide AIDS instruction in all grades as part of health education.
The Lesson Guide for Grade K from our BOE directs that kindergarten teachers teach classes on what the terms “healthy” and “sick” mean. Then in Lesson 4, the terms HIV and AIDS are introduced. They are taught HIV is a virus that lives in the blood of an infected person and they should be wary about keeping other people’s blood from getting into their bodies.
Sounds somewhat heavy, somber, serious, and out of place in classroom where students draw with crayons, take naps, and enjoy milk and cookies.
Teachers are supposed to have children pick a partner, have one play doctor and other a patient. Then the “doctors” are guided to explain to the patients why HIV is hard to get. Finishing the lesson, several “patients” must explain what their “doctors” said to them.
What can you do if this scenario is not to your liking? OPT OUT!
Sen. Maltese has sent a letter to many of the parents in his district of Glendale and included an “opt out” form that can be completed and given to the school principal. He firmly believes that “parents know their children best and know what they are old enough to learn in school and what issues are best addressed at home.”
Sen. Maltese will make a copy of the “opt out” form available through his office. Call 718-497-1800.
All schools have a copy of the HIV/AIDS curriculum and parents are invited to review it and tell the schools how you feel about it. You have the right opt your children out of the individual lessons on methods of prevention. If you send in a letter, stating that you will provide your own prevention lessons at home, then your child will be removed from the classroom when prevention lessons are given.
That is all fine and dandy, but we say remove the whole curriculum from the kindergarten classrooms not the individual kids. This subject is not age-appropriate — no matter what the BOE says!