According to Oregon Live, the 10-point assignment, which was posted to an online learning management system, asked students to choose three items, such as candles, massage oil, feathers, and flavored syrup, to use in their stories. The teacher, Kirk Miller, instructed students to illustrate their ability to "show and receive loving physical affection without having sex."
The response was swift, with hundreds of comments flooding a Facebook group within an hour. One parent commented that if a male adult asked their daughter to share her sexual fantasies with him, they would go to the police. Katherine Rogers, another concerned parent, said the students felt "mortified, awkward, and creeped out."
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Missy Cole, the school principal, sent out a letter informing families that the administration is working with the district office to review the 2016 adopted secondary health curriculum, Our Whole Lives (OWL), and the full context of the assignment. The OWL curriculum is endorsed by the Oregon Department of Education, and families can opt their students out of any or all coursework. The principal also said the district had begun reviewing and selecting a new health curriculum to replace the OWL content by the end of the school year.
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Oregon Live also reported that another assignment, "With Whom Would You Do it," involved a virtual spinning wheel labeled with sexual categories, including anal and oral sex. According to Justin McCall, a parent of one of the students, his daughter was "very, very, very uncomfortable" in class throughout the assignment. He added that although his daughter and her best friend did not participate in the assignment, they still got graded.
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Churchill High School has not yet responded to requests for comment. However, OWL program manager Melanie Davis has stated that the district was following an "unauthorized" and "out-of-context" facilitated group activity. School board member Gordon Lafer has also said that the homework on sexual fantasies "should not be part of our curriculum."
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The assignment, which has since been pulled from the syllabus, has sparked a debate over the appropriateness of the content of the health class curriculum. While the school district has taken steps to review and replace the OWL curriculum, questions remain as to how the assignment was approved in the first place. Even though families can opt their students out of any or all coursework, it is clear that the current system of reviewing and approving course syllabi has failed to prevent the inclusion of inappropriate content in the classroom.
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