Journalist: Daniel Geary (TU)
Rep. Walters, a one star from TCC, is yet to hear his bill, TCC-502, titled the “Comprehensive Sex-Ed Act,” a bill amending Oklahoma’s sex education curriculum standards for medical accuracy and for additional content requirements. Under current Oklahoma guidelines, the language used in sex-ed standards offers leeway for interpretation regarding the need to teach about consent, as well as abstinence. Additionally, language pertaining to STI awareness and prevention, contraception, pregnancy and healthy relationships is excluded from the original statute. Rep. Walters is seeking to address this by bringing back a bill that he had initially authored for the prior fall session.
Upon reflecting about his intentions with the bill, Rep. Walters painted a sober picture about the state of sex-ed in Oklahoma and its downstream consequences. “Oklahoma, in the nation, has some of the highest rates of sexual violence and teen pregnancy,” Walters said in reference to the state’s antiquated curriculum standards. For him, the remedy in tackling these problems starts with requiring medically accurate information within the classroom and supplementing the current Oklahoma statute with standards that include instruction on topics that, according to him, have reverberating effects on young adult socialization.
Walters said that “by making students more informed, it takes away the taboo nature of [sex], and by taking away the taboo nature of it, it makes it less of [a bad thing].” Walters’ acknowledged that current curriculum standards do little in fostering social norms that spotlight the understanding of power dynamics, relationships, and coercion, and by tightening up requirements to teach about healthy relationships and safe sex practices, he argues that this will better equip students with defending themselves against sexual violence and medical ignorance. Walters is optimistic about the passage of his bill and thinks that the favorability his bill saw last session, with near unanimous support in the house, will extend over into the spring session.