Instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity will largely be prohibited in all public-school grades after the State Board of Education on Wednesday approved a controversial rule change.
The rule effectively expands Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education” law, a hot-button measure that passed last year and was labeled by critics as the “don’t say gay” bill.
The law prohibited instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third-grade and required that such instruction be “age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate” in older grades.
But the rule requires that teachers shall not “intentionally provide” instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in fourth through 12th grades, unless such instruction is required by state academic standards or “is part of a reproductive health course or health lesson for which a student’s parent has the option to have his or her student not attend.”
The rule also extends the outright prohibition on such instruction to pre-kindergarten classrooms.
Teachers could face suspension or revocation of their educator certificates for violations of the rule.
Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. described the change to a rule about educator conduct as bringing clarity to what is expected of teachers.
“All we are doing is, we are setting the expectations so that our teachers are clear that they are to teach to the standards,” Diaz said before the board passed the rule.
But numerous critics,...
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