Minnesota parents are far from smitten with their kids’ sex ed curriculum.
The director of Minneapolis’ Gaia Democratic School took a handful of her middle- and high-schoolers on a field trip to a sex toy shop without telling their parents.
Starri Hedges, who also teaches the tiny private school’s sex education class, took about a dozen students — some as young as 11 — to the Smitten Kitten last week, a final lesson to cap off a year-long class on reproductive health and human sexuality.
But some parents said they didn’t know about the field trip until after their kids came home.
“It’s just a major breach of trust,” dad Lynn Floyd told the Star-Tribune. His 13- and 11-year-old daughters were on the trip, and he pulled them along with their 9-year-old sister from the school after they told their mother about the unexpected outing.
Gaia, a progressive, private K-12 school that emphasizes democratic education and student empowerment, teaches about 25 students from inside Minneapolis’ First Unitarian Society building.
Hedges admitted that she could have coordinated the trip better with parents, but maintained the outing helped teach her students important lessons about human sexuality.
“What I saw happening on our trip, I thought it was beautiful because kids could talk to these sex educators without any shame, without any fear,” she told the newspaper.
The Smitten Kitten, which bills itself as a “progressive sext toy store” that sells novelties, books and DVDs for everyone, removed pornography from its shelves during the school’s visit, but some sex toys were still on display.
Store workers, Hedges and the students talked about safe sex, and some students bought condoms, Hedges said. Only middle and high school students in Hedges’ year-long sex education class were eligible to attend.
“The sexual health aspect, there is no right age for all kids,” she said. “You can’t say, ‘All kids should know this at this age.’”
Public education officials said the district has no authority over the school, since it is privately run.
However, after the backlash from Gaia parents, Hedges said the trip will be the school’s last.
“It was certainly the first time we have taken that kind of field trip and it will probably be our last, which I feel bad (about) because the kids had so much fun,” Hedges said.