A Boston public school elicited outrage among parents this week when it presented pre-teen students with an explicit survey asking them about their sexual history, including whether they’ve performed oral sex.
The principal of Eliot K-8 Innovation School in a Thursday letter to parents acknowledged the “many concerns” over the survey, which was administered on Wednesday to some sixth- and seventh-graders.
A copy of the survey shows it inquired about the pre-teens’ risk behavior, with several questions asking about their sexual history. “Have you ever participated in oral sex?” one question asked. “Oral sex is when a person puts their mouth on another person’s genitals or private area,” the survey explained.
Another question asked students if they are “transgender … someone who does not feel the same inside as the sex they were born with.”
The controversy over the explicit survey comes as schools across the country have faced scrutiny from parents over inappropriate content in the classroom. In 2021, thousands of parents in the Worcester, Mass., public school district pulled their children out of the district’s sex education classes over content they called “dangerous.”
The Youth Risk Behavior Survey…
