Sex Education Resources

This resource provides an overview of key policy components for sexual health education in schools. It includes sample policies and other resources pertaining to parental notification and involvement, curriculum selection and materials review, professional development, the role of external agencies and more.  

Best Practices for Family Engagement provides tips on how to engage parents and guardians before, during and after sex education implementation.  

The Capacity Assessment and Planning Tool (CAPT) aids in determining how ready a school district is to engage in sex education efforts.  This can be adapted to respond to a specific state or regional context. 

Because the majority of states have voluntarily adopted the Common Core Standards for mathematics and English language arts/literacy (ELA), some WISE grantee partners have aligned their sexuality curriculum with the ELA components.  

This fact sheet provides a summary of recent research highlighting the connections between sex education and academic success.  

This curriculum selection tool lists a variety of criteria to consider including curriculum, training and TA availability and cost, alignment with standards and best practices, etc.  

DASH supports 19 state and 17 local education agencies to support schools and school districts in implementing exemplary sexual health education, increase adolescent access to sexual health services and establish safe and supportive environments for students and staff.

This Tool Kit was created to provide valuable information, innovative ideas, and strategies for community members to build awareness and support for policies and programs that improve sexual health outcomes among youth.

School districts and teachers may not be aware of current sex education policies and education codes that govern sex education. Creating a simple, accessible handout with the key policies and codes can ensure stakeholders understand what is mandated and where opportunities for tailoring to local contexts exist. GCAPP created a state-level overview and regional fact sheets to allow regions to compare their policies with the state policy.

The Health Education Curriculum Analysis Tool (HECAT) can help school districts, schools, and others conduct a clear, complete, and consistent analysis of health education curricula based on the National Health Education Standards and CDC’s Characteristics of Effective Health Education Curricula.

This publication, produced by the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE), provides a summary of the federal, state and local educational systems of governance, outlines key tips for engaging and partnering with schools and answers frequently asked questions about education.  

The Implementation Planning Worksheet assists school district staff in planning who will be delivering sex education and when.  

ETR offers adaptation kits which contain practical tools and resources to guide adolescent reproductive health practitioners in making effective adaptations and maintaining fidelity to program core components. The adaptation kits were developed to provide clarity on how each program was designed, its core components, and the types of adaptations that are considered safe and those that should be avoided.

This memorandum of understanding template outlines potential roles and responsibilities of the partners involved in sex education implementation efforts. Not only does an MOU clarify expectations, but also helps to institutionalize efforts so that agreements can continue even if a key stakeholder changes positions.

The National Health Education Standards provide a framework to help teachers, administrators, and policymakers promote health-enhancing behaviors among students in grade levels Pre-K through 12. The framework, consisting of eight health education standards, includes performance indicators that can be applied to a variety of health topics.

By mapping state or local standards and/or programs and curricula to the National Sexuality Education Standards, school professionals can identify which topics are currently covered in sex education class by grade level and which are not. 

The goal of the National Sex Education Standards: Core Content and Skills, K–12 (Second Edition) is
to provide clear, consistent, and straightforward guidance on the essential, minimum, core content and skills needed for sex education that is age-appropriate for students in grades K–12 to be effective. The National Sexuality Education Standards were developed and align to the National Health Education Standards.

Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power and Potential (GCAPP), a WISE lead partner, developed a parent survey to find out what parents wanted their students to learn.

This spreadsheet can be helpful in tracking status of potential partner school districts.  

Based on a similar tool developed by SHIFT NC, this preliminary assessment provides an early gauge of whether or not a school district shows promise. 

Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential (GCAPP), a WISE lead partner, developed a simple tool to document the various needs of key constituency groups. This sample shows the different school district stakeholders they engaged and how they tailored their message to distinct stakeholder needs. GCAPP staff would reference this document before conversations with these key stakeholders to ensure they were connecting their efforts to each stakeholder’s needs during every interaction.

ETR Associates mapped two curricula -- Making Healthy Choices and Positive Prevention  -- to mandated HIV and CSE education codes to determine alignment between curricula and policy. This table provides an example of what mapping and alignment looks like in practice.

This sample presentation discusses the role and function of School Health Advisory Councils (SHACs) as well as tips for successful recruitment and retention of SHAC members.

SHPPS is a national survey periodically conducted to assess school health policies and practices at the state, district, school, and classroom levels.

The School Health Profiles are a system of surveys assessing school health policies and practices in states, large urban school districts, territories, and tribal governments. Profiles are conducted biennially by education and health agencies among middle and high school principals and lead health education teachers.

This research summarizes sex and HIV education programs and hones in on 17 characteristics of programs that led to behavior change.

This database provides access to statewide information on education system characteristics (e.g., number of students, schools, teachers), finances, assessments and selected demographics. Cross-state comparison tools are also available.

The Guttmacher Institute’s State Policies in Brief provide state-by-state information on key issues affecting sexual and reproductive health and rights. The publications are updated monthly to reflect the most recent legislative, administrative, and judicial actions. The Sex and HIV Education brief summarizes state-level sex and HIV education policies, as well as specific content requirements, based on a review of state laws, regulations and other legally binding policies

SIECUS State Profiles is a state-by-state resource that describes sexuality education and abstinence-only-until-marriage programs in each state.  Each state profile includes a summary of state laws and policies related to sexuality education.  It also includes information about a variety of federal funding programs that support sexuality education and/or abstinence-only-until-marriage programs as well as how much money each state is receiving from each federal program (if applicable) and a summary of how it is being used. 

The NASBE State School Health Policy Database contains brief descriptions of laws, legal codes, rules, regulations, administrative orders, mandates, standards, resolutions, and other written means of exercising authority. It also includes guidance documents and other non-binding materials that provide a more detailed picture of a state’s school health policies and activities. Hyperlinks to full written policies are provided whenever possible. The database is searchable by state, topic, and keyword.

This Technical Assistance Action Plan is a tool to assist in the process of moving from planning to action. The planning tables below can help bridge the gap between the roll-out plan and the provision of needed technical assistance. Tables may be adapted to serve individual districts, as needed.

Based on the Sex and HIV Education Programs for Youth: Their Impact and Important Characteristics research, this tool is designed to assess, select, improve, or design a sex or STD/HIV education program.

This PDF of the WISE Toolkit includes content related to the each of the four phases and corresponding steps.  

The YRBSS monitors six priority health-risk behaviors among youth and young adults including sexual behaviors that contribute to unintended pregnancy and STDs/HIV, alcohol and other drug use as well as violence. Annual and trend data is available.