What You Need to Know about Family Life Education Curriculum

Sex Education in Virginia's K-12 Public Schools

The Family Life Education (FLE) curriculum in Virginia is an abstinence-based curriculum taught in grades K-12 with age- and developmentally-appropriate lessons covering Human Growth and Development (HGD) and Social Emotional Health (SEH). which promotes parental involvement, fosters self-care and protective behavior, explains sexual development, and provides mechanisms for coping with peer pressure and stresses.

The Virginia Department of Education provides standards and guidelines for instruction on a “variety of issues including family and community relationships, mental health, responsibility and disease prevention.” The lessons are sequential, so that older grade levels build on what is learned earlier, and additional material is added as students mature. Many school districts provide grade-by-grade public overviews of their program (e.g., Fairfax County, Alexandria City, Prince William County, etc.), and they typically provide community review opportunities. 

All school districts must provide opt-out opportunities for students to withdraw completely from FLE lessons or to opt-out of specific lessons. Currently, there are efforts in many districts to ensure that FLE can be inclusive of diverse student populations found in Virginia schools.

The American Academy of Pediatricians has found that many “systematic reviews of the literature have indicated that comprehensive sex education promotes healthy sexual behaviors.” Access to comprehensive sex education has many benefits including building healthy relationships; delayed sexual activity; reduced rates of sexually transmitted diseases, sexual activity, and teen pregnancy; and increased use of contraception and condoms. 

Sex education has long been a focus of culture wars, and FLE is no different. One thing that makes it such a flash point is different viewpoints on what should be taught, and when it should be taught. However, great efforts are made in Virginia for parental/guardian involvement and the ability to opt out of the program. 

Nevertheless, the FLE curriculum and volunteer committee who provides input on FLE, FLE Curriculum Advisory Committee (FLECAC), are frequently the target of angry rhetoric by organized groups who seem to fundamentally disagree with the existence of sex education in public schools, or feel it should exclude LGBTQIA+ students and families. Local groups, parents, guardians, and students have organized to encourage positive change in FLE programs. 

The FLE curriculum is sometimes confused with the School Health Profiles Survey, a national system of surveys implemented by local and state departments of health, which use the data collected in schools to direct resources and programming. See the Fairfax County Youth Survey to see the kind of data collected and how it is used.

In Fairfax County, FCPS values public input; therefore, they publish the FLE meeting dates, notes, members, and more on the FLECAC web page. If you would like to learn more, meetings are held at the Gatehouse cafeteria (8115 Gatehouse Road Falls Church, VA 22042) from 7-9pm on the second Tuesday of the month from September-April. The next meetings will be on February 12, March 12, and April 9 in 2025.