22.1-207.1 - Family life education. - Virginia Statutes

§ 22.1-207.1. Family life education.

The Board of Education shall develop by December 1, 1987, standards oflearning and curriculum guidelines for a comprehensive, sequential familylife education curriculum in grades K through 12. Such curriculum guidelinesshall include instruction as appropriate for the age of the student in familyliving and community relationships; the benefits, challenges,responsibilities, and value of marriage for men, women, children, andcommunities; abstinence education; the value of postponing sexual activity;the benefits of adoption as a positive choice in the event of an unwantedpregnancy; human sexuality; human reproduction; dating violence, thecharacteristics of abusive relationships, steps to take to avoid sexualassault, and the availability of counseling and legal resources, and, in theevent of such sexual assault, the importance of immediate medical attentionand advice, as well as the requirements of the law; the etiology, preventionand effects of sexually transmitted diseases; and mental health education andawareness.

All such instruction shall be designed to promote parental involvement,foster positive self concepts and provide mechanisms for coping with peerpressure and the stresses of modern living according to the students'developmental stages and abilities. The Board shall also establishrequirements for appropriate training for teachers of family life education,which shall include training in instructional elements to support the variouscurriculum components.

For the purposes of this section, "abstinence education" means aneducational or motivational component which has as its exclusive purposeteaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized byteenagers' abstaining from sexual activity before marriage.

(1987, c. 371; 1999, c. 422; 2002, c. 554; 2004, c. 1030; 2007, c. 32; 2008,c. 417; 2009, cc. 437, 583.)