Bill > H1409

Introduced Session

An act relating to education in public schools concerning human sexuality; providing a short title; requiring certain public schools that provide information or offer programs to students relating to human sexuality to provide information or offer programs that meet specified criteria; providing definitions; requiring public schools to make a certain curriculum available to parents and guardians upon request; authorizing students to be excused from certain portions of a program under certain circumstances; prohibiting an excused student from receiving disciplinary action, academic penalty, or any other form of punishment for being excused; providing a compliance review process that meets certain requirements; providing for district school superintendents, district school boards, and the Commissioner of Education to review compliance and take corrective actions; amending s. 1003.46, F.S.; revising required instruction in acquired immune deficiency syndrome; amending s. 1006.40, F.S.; conforming a cross-reference to changes made by the act; providing for severability; providing an effective date. hb1409-00 HB 1409 WHEREAS, 59 percent of all pregnancies in Florida are described as "unintended," and, in 2010, Florida spent $1.3 million on births resulting from unintended pregnancies, and WHEREAS, in 2013, Florida had the 29th highest birthrate among women between the ages of 15 and 19, and Florida was one of only three states whose number of births rose in 2012 and 2013, and WHEREAS, between federal fiscal years 1996-1997 and 2009- 2010, Congress disbursed a total of more than 1.5 billion tax dollars to abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, with funding for such programs continuing today, and WHEREAS, scientific evidence contends that comprehensive sex education helps adolescents withstand social pressures and promotes healthy, responsible, and mutually protective relationships once adolescents do become sexually active and that withholding such information contributes to uninformed adolescents who can carry habits and misinformation into adulthood, and WHEREAS, adolescents and young adults between the ages of 15 and 24 account for nearly half of the 20 million new cases of sexually transmitted infections each year and, in 2014, 16 percent of reported new HIV infections were from individuals younger than the age of 25, and WHEREAS, Florida has the 4th highest number of syphilis cases in the nation and, in 2013, had the highest rate of new hb1409-00 HB 1409 HIV infections, and WHEREAS, providing adolescents with comprehensive and age- appropriate sex education will give them the information necessary to make responsible decisions about their sexual health and provide a common-sense solution to reducing unintended adolescent pregnancies and cases of sexually transmitted infections, NOW, THEREFORE,

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Anna Eskamani (D)*, 

Died in Secondary Education & Career Development Subcommittee (on 03/14/2022)

Official Document