Date: Mon, 10 Jul 1995 06:46:36 -0800 From: jessea@uclink2.berkeley.edu (Jessea NR Greenman) Subject: California Health Textbook Alert NEWS RELEASE July 10, 1995 CONTACT Jessea Greenman, Co-Founder, Project 21, , 510-601-8883 Penultimate Chance to Demand Inclusive Health Texts Proper health education in public schools is a life or death matter for young people. Young LGBT people need to hear from educators that they are healthy people deserving of respect in society. They need fair and accurate information about the role of homophobia in creating excessive stressors which will make their lives more challenging. Young "straight" people need to be taught that queers are normal and natural and that bias against us is a societal illness. All young people need to be taught honestly and accurately about sexuality, STD's, and AIDS. Health education, if done right, can prevent homophobia, a highly destructive social disease for which all students are at risk unless given proper instruction to the contrary. Unfortunately the State of California is unlikely to approve inclusive health education materials despite a mandate to do so in the most recent Health Framework (the document passed by the Curriculum Commission and the State Board of Eduction which governs health education texts and teaching). State educational policy makers still are loath to approve classroom health study materials which tell the truth about the sexual orientation and homophobia. Their failure to do so represents abandonment of their responsibility to innoculate young people with the only known vaccine against homophobia: the truth about sexual orientation. Project 21 calls upon all people *anywhere* who interested in truth and justice in public education to communicate their concerns to the California Curriculum Development and Supplemental Materials Commission (CCDSMC) RIGHT NOW. The books California adopts influence the textbook market throughout the nation due to the economics of publishing. Write to the CCDSMC at once, as it is holding hearings Wednesday July 26 and Thursday July 27 on proposed health education materials for use in the state's school for the next 5-7 years. Better yet, if you can go to Sacramento and attend the hearings, sign up to testify. Public comment periods on Health Instructional Resources will be held both of those two days at 10 a.m. in Room 166, Education Building, 721 Capitol Mall, Sacramento CA. You can sign up to speak for two minutes by writing the CCDSMC at P.O.Box 944272, Sacramento CA 94244-2720 (Attention: Curriculum Frameworks and Instructional Resources Office) or by calling them at 916-657-5436. Requests must be made by noon the third working day before the scheduled public comment period. If you can't go speak, then by all means DO write to the CCDSMC at the same address. Demand that they adopt only materials which are inclusive of full, fair, accurate and diverse information about LGBT people, sexual orientation, and sexuality. Address your concerns directly to Eugene "Geno" Flores, Chair of the Commission, and request that your comments be circulated to all Commission members. Health materials being proposed for use in California's classrooms (and elsewhere around the nation) are on display at Learning Resource Display Centers (LRDCs) throughout the state. Now is the time that citizens can visit these centers to view the materials and critique them. You can be CERTAIN that the minions of the radical religious right wing are doing just that. Our voices also must be heard in this process. For a complete list of California's LRDCs, please email . You can make a huge difference in the lives of school children, queer or not, by standing up now for objectivity and inclusiveness in health education materials. Out young people deserve self-esteem. Straight youth need the facts if they are to avoid developing the dangerous social illness called homophobia, an disease created by our public school system when it ignores the truth that same-sex orientation is natural and normal and instead allows ignorance and prejudice to grow unchecked in impressionable young minds. After viewing the materials, fill out a comment postcard at the LRDC. OR, better yet, send your thoughts via letter directly to the State Board of Education. The Board can be reached at 721 Capitol Mall; P.O. Box 944272, Sacramento CA 94244-2720. Send to the attention of Board President Marion McDowell, and ask that your comments be circulated to all members of the Board. The Board will be holding hearings on the recommendations made by the CCDSMC. The Board's hearing will be September 7th and 8th, so get thee to the nearest LRDC and then communicate directly to the Board. You may also write to the individual publishers. For a list of all publishers of participating in the 1995 Health Adoption, email . *+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+ PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CROSS POST WITH ATTRIBUTION Jessea Greenman Co-Founder, Project 21; ph/fax: 510-601-8883 586 62nd St. Oakland, CA 94609-1245 Project 21 is *always* looking for more volunteer organizers. If you are interested, please contact Jessea as shown above.