Sexual Health Education Guide for Schools

Development of the Guide

Many school districts face the challenge of keeping a record of their approved sex education programming. With changes in administration and staff, educators may not know what lessons to teach and what supplementary resources to use at each grade level. Without consistent implementation, students might not receive the same instruction from class to class. Also, controversy can arise when individual teachers don’t know what to teach and have to make it up as they go. By having a clear record, schools can communicate consistently with families and school staff. With that in mind, the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) developed a template of a Sexual Health Education Guide (SHE Guide) that school districts can modify and make their own.

This brief summary outlines the steps of that process:

The MDE’s HIV and Sex Ed Consultant, Laurie Bechhofer, gathered sex education guides from schools that already had created this type of document.
Next, sex ed supervisors and educators from many districts convened to create a first draft document.
With input from key individuals who possessed special expertise on specific topics, Laurie and I developed the next draft.
National leaders in sex education reviewed the next draft, and their comments were incorporated.
Finally, the SHE Guide was released to Michigan’s network of Regional School Health Coordinators for dissemination across the state.

Sexual Health Education Guide Templates

The following links take you to the template of the SHE Guide. One version is for Michigan school districts; the other is for schools in other states. Both versions are intended for you to personalize to fit your own school district. Please read the file titled “SHE Guide User Notes” first to learn how to use this resource.