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“Governor Maura T. Healey, Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll, Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler and DESE Commissioner Jeffrey C. Riley today announced that their administration is proposing an updated draft of the comprehensive health and physical education curriculum framework to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) this month.
The LGBTQ+ inclusive, medically accurate and developmentally- and age-appropriate framework outlines guidelines for health and physical education for preK-12 public school students in Massachusetts and would revise DESE’s existing Comprehensive Health Curriculum Framework, which was last updated in 1999.
“As the proud daughter of a school nurse and health and sex education teacher, I believe strongly that all students deserve inclusive, medically accurate, and age-appropriate health guidelines,” said Governor Healey. “All of our students benefit when they learn from up-to-date, evidence-based material grounded in science. These new guidelines will empower students with the skills they need to build healthy lives in school and beyond.”
“I am grateful to the health experts, educators, and DESE team members for all the work they have put into this draft framework to ensure guidelines are scientifically accurate, reflective of best practices according to experts in the field, and age-appropriate for each grade span.” said Lt. Governor Kim Driscoll. “By providing our students with cutting-edge best practices around health and wellness, we can better prepare the next generation for lifelong health.”
“This is exactly the right time to move this framework forward. Our education system is still recovering from the lasting impacts of the pandemic, and this new framework will provide students and educators access to modern, scientifically-backed practices for achieving mental and physical health,” said Secretary of Education Patrick Tutwiler. “I’m proud of DESE and the effort of all the students, educators, administrators, health experts, and other stakeholders who collaborated to deliver such high-quality guidelines for our students.”
The draft updated Comprehensive Health and Physical Education Curriculum Framework incorporates modern understanding of the importance of health and wellness to outline appropriate expectations for what students should know and be able to do at each stage of their education, with strategies to enhance their own mental, emotional and physical health along the way. The framework includes mental and emotional health; personal safety, including safety from gun violence; physical health and hygiene; healthy relationships, including safety from dating violence, nutrition and balanced eating; physical activity and fitness; substance use and misuse; gender, sexual orientation, and sexual health; and public, community, and environmental health.
The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, at its regular meeting on June 27, will hear a presentation on the draft framework and vote on whether to send it out for public comment. If the Board votes to do so, educators, parents, advocates and members of the public will have 60 days to comment on the draft framework. After the public comment period, DESE will consider the feedback and bring the draft back to the Board for a vote on adoption.
“I’m pleased to bring this draft to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education for their consideration, and I’m recommending that they send the draft out for public comment,” said Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Jeffrey C. Riley. “School districts have discretion to determine how the standards will be implemented at the local level. We hope the framework will be a resource of lasting value for schools and districts.”
The draft Comprehensive Health and Physical Education Curriculum Framework is just the latest of DESE’s curriculum frameworks to be updated. (In 2021, DESE went through a similar process updating the World Language Framework.) As with all frameworks, school districts will decide at the local level which curriculum and materials educators will use to teach the skills included in the voluntary health framework. Additionally, under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 71 Section 32A, parents have the right to opt out their children from lessons related to sex education, a small portion of the knowledge covered in the Comprehensive Health and Physical Education Curriculum Framework.
The Comprehensive Health and Physical Education Curriculum Framework draft can be accessed here.” Mass.gov.
