A Colorado teen is demanding more comprehensive sex education curriculum after Roe was overturned: “I didn’t learn a lot of things I needed”

Minna Most woke up one morning in June and scrolled through TikTok on her phone. As she searched, the 17-year-old discovered that the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade, ending protections for abortion that had been in place for decades.

“I was just overwhelmed,” Most said, adding, “The world basically became a more dangerous place in my entire lifetime.”

Determined to do something, Most turned her focus to improving sex education in Boulder Valley School District hoping to make it more comprehensive and more inclusive of people in the LGBTQ community.

“I didn’t learn a lot of things I needed,” she said.

In a Post-Roe world, teenagers need better lessons about things such as contraceptives, reproduction, and what to do if they get pregnant, said Most, a senior at Monarch High School in Louisville.

Each state decides what to teach K-12 students – including if anything at all – in sex education classes. Often it is taught “too little, too late,” said Eva Goldfarb, a professor of public health at Montclair State University in New Jersey who studies sex education.

“What ends up getting taught, if there is sex education are things that school districts feel are going to be the least controversial,” she said.

Only 29 states and the District of Columbia require schools to teach sex education, according to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS).

Colorado does not require schools to teach sex education, but if it is taught, then under state statute, schools must teach about all pregnancy options, including abortion. Lessons also have to be medically accurate, teach about consent, and cannot exclude the health needs of lesbians, gay, bisexual or transgender people.

“On paper, Colorado is one of the better states when it comes to sex education,” Goldfarb said.

But, she said, “If schools don’t want to teach it the way Colorado wants them to, then they don’t have to (teach it) at all.”

As Most researched her school district’s sex education curriculum, she found educators taught about contraceptives and sexually transmitted diseases. But she concluded students weren’t necessarily taught how to access contraceptives or how to get tested and treated for STDs.

Her classes rarely mentioned LGBTQ sexual health information – or even in some cases mention the word “sex.”

“It was weird they couldn’t even say the word,” she said. “It made it feel taboo like they weren’t comfortable discussing (the topic).”

Most was curious whether other students had the same experience, so she surveyed BVSD students via text and Instagram.

Almost 80% of the more than 100 students who took the survey said they did not feel that BVSD prepared them for what to do if they thought they were pregnant; more than half said abstinence was emphasized or heavily emphasized in sex ed lessons; only 17% of students knew what to do if they thought they had an STD, according to Most’s research, which she presented to the district’s school board in October.

Most said she’s learned there are limitations to the survey’s findings since taking AP Statistics this semester. First, it was a volunteer survey and wasn’t offered to everyone in her school or district.

Still, she said, the study provides an idea of what students have experienced in sex ed classes.

“Ideally, I’d like a reassessment of the curriculum,” Most said.

What is comprehensive sex education?

At BVSD, sex education instruction starts when students are in the fifth grade, teaching students about puberty and growing bodies. The classes are often taught by school nurses and BVSD partners with local organizations, such as Boulder Valley Women’s Health Center, on lessons, said Jordan Goto, health and wellness coordinator for the district.

BVSD students are taught about all of the options available to someone who has an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy and are encouraged to talk to a trusted adult to help navigate such decisions, she said. Teens can access confidential health services via health departments and medical providers, where they can ask doctors questions related to sex, including about birth control and STD testing, without parental consent, she said.

Comprehensive sex education occurs when lessons are medically accurate and age and culturally appropriate and teaches more than pregnancy and disease prevention, Goldfarb said.

It is also about building life skills, teaching students to appreciate themselves and others, understand boundaries, have healthy relationships, and how to seek help and health information, she said.

Comprehensive sex education can delay sexual initiation, reduce unwanted pregnancies and STDs, and increase condom use. It is also associated with lowering the risk of sexual assault in college, less bullying toward people in the LGBTQ community, and a reduction in depression and suicidal ideation for all young people, said Danielle Tuft, interpersonal and sexual violence unit manager at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Students as young as kindergarteners can be taught fundamentals that are not explicit about sex. For example, young children learn how to say it’s OK if they don’t want to hug another person. Such conversations set the groundwork for harder and more complicated conversations about consent and body autonomy when they are older, Goldfarb said.

“Nobody is talking to young children about how to have sex,” she said.

“You just have to be brave enough”

Most isn’t alone in her interest in the district’s sex education curriculum or what it means for teenagers now that Roe has been overturned — even though it remains legal in Colorado. Over the summer, multiple students reached out to administrators at BVSD because they were interested in learning more about 1973 ruling and the implications of it being overturned, Goto said.