[Cushing]: All right, everyone. We are live on YouTube for anyone who wants to view this at a later date. We're also recording locally if we need to share out the presentation. I do want to thank everyone for being here. We were trying something new this year by offering it during the day in the hopes that parents might be able to step away during the lunch break, take a few minutes to listen in, and to be part of the conversation on this topic and the presentation that will be going for fifth grade students. We just want to let you know, last year I think we had three parents on when we offered in the evening, and I'm very excited that we have so many other parents joining us today. And at this time, I'm going to turn it over to Rachel Perry. And if anyone needs to change their name, you just click up in your image. There are three little dots. And if you click that, it'll say rename. I appreciate our nursing staff being here as well. They're such an integral part to everything that we do. And I do want to now move forward with Rachel Perry taking the lead from here.
[Perry]: Good afternoon, everybody, welcome. So I'm gonna give you a little bit of background, my background, what we've been doing, and then really dive into the few lessons and talk about some objectives and how this curriculum works. And then I will leave some time at the end for any questions you might have. So I've been the director of physical education and health education for the past nine years here in Medford. We have recently evaluated, sorry, We have recently evaluated our health curriculum. We had a HECAT committee evaluate everything we're doing. We've been using the Michigan model for middle school and high school. And based on that HECAT evaluation, they didn't think that what we were doing for puberty and sexual education at the higher grades was appropriately meeting the needs of our students so that we needed to make an update. What we've been using for puberty in the past is just a video was a Procter and Gamble puberty video and that was presented by our nurses, as that served our students well for the time, it's time to really move on so that we can make sure that we're servicing everybody. So based on that HECAT work, the recommendation was to look for a new puberty curriculum. And Puberty Happens is the curriculum that we chose. That was actually a referral from one of my colleagues over in Reading. And what we've done is, it's a lot of lessons, but we've kind of pared it down to about three lessons that we will be able to teach to our fifth graders, where before it was only one lesson. The Puberty Happens curriculum is gonna be presented in our Nexus classes, and that is gonna be by our Nexus teachers and nurses who will be supporting the teachers with this curriculum. The Nexus teachers did attend a puberty training, a one-day puberty training, so they have all been trained in how to teach puberty. So what I'm going to do is I'm kind of going to go through the lessons and talk about the objectives in what kind of activities they're doing. And then, like I said, I will open it up for you for all your questions after. So the first lesson is really It's getting started with a warm up activity it's kind of an icebreaker, and it sets the stage to help students feel more comfortable with each other before launching into the curriculum content. Students may have different expectations about what will be discussed in puberty class in the warm up is an opportunity. to promote the concept that it's normal for students to have both similarities and differences, and that each person develops in different ways, at a different pace, and in a different time frame. So that first warm-up activity is actually called, do you, have you, or are you? And teachers designate areas of the room where students gather if they agree with the statement or they don't identify with the statement. Some of the statements could be, do you like to sleep late on weekends? You know, things like that. Do you have more than one pet? Do you hope to be famous one day? So, you know, a lot of different questions. And when finished, and we have the students sit down, And what we do is we'll ask them some questions. How did it feel when you were in a group with a number of your friends? What was it like when you were by yourself or just with a few others? And that we want students to understand that sometimes when you're going through puberty, you may feel left out. It's important to remember that everyone goes through the change of puberty at different times. We should avoid situations where we cause someone to feel hurt, left out or alone. And we need to be understanding of other people's feelings and value our differences. So that's our first warmup activity, and that's in that first lesson. Then we move on to what we call setting classroom agreements. We want to make sure that we establish a set of behavioral expectations or classroom rules when we're presenting this unit. And some of those are, you know, respecting others. The questions are welcome. that you have the right to pass if you're uncomfortable with an activity or a question, that we're not going to gossip or talk about anyone in class or how they've responded to anything. So things like that. So we're setting that community expectation of respect and acceptance throughout the class. The last piece of that first lesson is we're going to introduce what we call the anonymous question box. So each teacher has an anonymous question box on their desk, and they're going to give students an opportunity at the end of lessons to ask a question that they might not want to ask out loud, that they might not feel comfortable asking out loud. And teachers will review those in address in the next lesson. And that's the first lesson. Moving from there, what we have is what we call the puberty changes match up. So in this lesson, we're looking at physical, emotional and social changes that our students might be going through during puberty. Students are put into small groups, and they passed out some cards with physical, emotional, and social changes on them. And students are asked to put these changes into a grouping. Is it physical, is it emotional, or is it social? And teachers will be able to walk around, have some conversations with students, and then they will review those at the end. The second piece to this lesson, is the Dear Puberty activity, where students are going to be given some scenarios that they need to discuss in a group, and how they would deal with those scenarios, and then the teacher would address it at the end. And the last part to that lesson is a supplemental home activity, which we are choosing to use. It's called the interview. And this is set up so that our students come home to our parents and caregivers and are able to have some conversation with them. And some of those questions they're gonna ask on that assignment is what was popular in clothing and music when you were my age? What did you like most when you were my age? What did you like least? How old were you when you started going through puberty? Who was your best friend and what did you like about them? What do you want me to know about growing up? And who was someone you could talk to when you had a problem or concern? So that's the assignment that students will take home to start those conversation with parents and caregivers. Um, the last lesson, uh, will encompass some hygiene and taking care of my body. And that is going to, um, go over some anatomy of the, um, sexual organs, penis and vagina. And then they will be going into how do I take care of my body? How do I deal with hygiene? What do we use when we are having our menstrual cycle? How do we deal with pubic hair and things like that? So those will all be addressed in that lesson. And that lesson may take one to two classes. It might not be, you know, all done in one lesson. I will say there are a lot more lessons within this curriculum that we will not be covering in the fifth grade. We just don't have the time, one, and those are maybe some things that we could push over to the middle school level. So that's what we have kind of in a nutshell. So I will be open now to take any questions that you might have. Jessica Healy.
[Healey]: Hi, how are you? Good, how are you? Good, I just have a question. Are we gonna, well, are the teachers going to be discussing like sexual orientation, gender identity?
[Perry]: So we will be using inclusive language, but we will be really going over what's happening in the body during puberty.
[Healey]: Okay, so we're geared towards The changes of the body, not so much.
[Perry]: Yes, not in the fifth grade. We won't be going into that. It would just be the changes in the body.
[Healey]: OK, thank you for that.
[Perry]: You're welcome. Christine Haverty.
[Haverty]: Hi. Thank you for doing this. We have our first child going through this, so all the guidance is helpful. So when is this going to start, just so we have time to chat with our son about it? Next week. So the 13th is the first, yes. just sorry, but we, so basically it's changes in the body and then nothing like really beyond that. I'm just trying to figure out when my husband and stuff talks with our son, what we should be talking about.
[Perry]: Correct. So we're talking about changes in the body. We will be talking a little bit about anatomy, nothing further than that until sixth grade.
[Haverty]: Okay. Well, hopefully you guys will get across that deodorant is good.
[Perry]: Yes. That's part of it.
[Haverty]: We're trying.
[Cushing]: Okay, Christine, as a as a former middle school principal high school teacher assistant principal. I've had a lot of those conversations over the years or any home conversations would be great as well.
[Haverty]: Yes, of course. Thank you.
[Casey]: Thank you. I'm Carrie Casey. Hi, good afternoon. So, two questions for lesson two, you, you talked about the small groups and the cards for identifying physical, emotional and social changes. You said that was a puberty activity, but you didn't provide any. Details on that. So I'm just curious what that activity looks like small groups class activity and then for lesson three is just, is this the teacher just talking to them about anatomy hygiene menstrual cycle or is there. No, they're actually going to be like, how is this going to be presented?
[Perry]: Sure. So that piece, they're going to be given pictures of different things that we might use during puberty and talk about how they can be used. And then the teacher will review it after, if that makes sense. I'm just trying to pull up some of those scenarios from the Dear Puberty activity for you. I hope, did that answer your question for that? For the taking care of my body or no?
[Casey]: No, I'm sorry. Could you expand on that?
[Perry]: Sure. So I'm going to see if I can show. So I don't know if you can see this at all. These pictures will be given out to students and they'll talk about how these can be used during or should be used during puberty. A soap, how should we be, you know, we should be showering every day. We have a pad and tampons showing things for females when they get their menstrual cycle. We talk about, you know, shaving and taking care of our bodies that way. We also do gonna be talking about SPF and making sure that our, that we're, you know, safe using, you know, in the sun, using products in the sun. So does that help?
[Casey]: So that's lesson three?
[Perry]: Yes, that is lesson three and talking about taking care of our bodies. And then I'm just looking for, I didn't expect you to ask about scenarios, I'm just gonna try to pull them.
[Cushing]: And while you're speaking about that, just so everybody's aware, we are actually today and the remainder of this week installing, they're called EGAL, Feminine Product Dispensers. Throughout our middle schools and high schools, they're essentially feminine products on a roll that will be in one stall of the fourth, fifth, middle and high school bathrooms, but just so that everybody's aware that we're taking it beyond the nurse's office at this point.
[Perry]: Thank you, Peter. All right, so there's a lot of different scenarios that students will be reviewing, and then they'll talk about how they might deal with it. For example, I am one of the shortest kids in my class. When I was younger, I did a school science project on shrimp, Some kids in my class gave me the nickname shrimpy and it stuck. Now where the kids are using the name and it really makes me mad. Why am I so short and how can I get them to stop calling me shrimpy? So students would read that scenario, talk about what advice they have and who might this person go to for help. So that's one example. Let's see if I can give you another one. I was given a presentation at school and my voice started to crack and squeak. Now I'm embarrassed to talk out loud in class again. What advice do you have and who might this person go to for help? So there's a lot of different scenarios that will be presented to students in groups and they'll come up with ideas on how they can deal with those scenarios. And that was from the Dear Puberty activity.
[Casey]: Great, thank you.
[Perry]: You're welcome. Jessica Haley, I think we're next.
[Healey]: Hi, sorry, I just have one more question. My son is in a inclusion classes on IEP. Is there going to be someone there that's able to help him like navigate the reading the writing?
[Perry]: I would have to check with the teacher and the principal, but we can absolutely follow up on that. Okay. What school is he at? Brooks School. The Brooks, okay. I'm just making a note.
[Roberto]: So does he usually have support in the Nexus classroom?
[Healey]: I'm not sure. his para might go there with them. I'm just not 100% positive if they do.
[Perry]: We can meet, you know, I can talk to the principal and teacher and make sure if you feel he needs that support that we have that there for him.
[Healey]: Okay, yeah, because he's just he's a non reader and stuff. So he'd be a little, you know, in a group of just kids, he'd be a little intimidated with not being able to maybe completely understand what's being said. Correct. Okay.
[Perry]: Yeah, I can drop you an email. I'm sure I can find your email in School Brains and I will reach out to the principal and teacher and get back to you on that. Perfect. Thank you. I appreciate it. You're welcome. Tracy Wagner.
[Wagner]: I saying thank you for doing this. I'm involved in the curriculum review and in other school districts. I'm thrilled that Medford is following the new comprehensive health standards. That's fantastic. Hi, Peter. And a couple comments. One is totally hearing that this is not about gender or sexual orientation and noting that many families like ours are two parents, my son has two moms, and so just making sure language is gender and sexual orientation family-wise inclusive is really appreciated. I know there's a number of non-binary students in my son's class, so language around that, while that's not what is being taught, in talking to the children about their families and their own identity is really appreciated. And also just noting I'm already starting to get teary-eyed when I think about those interviews. Those questions are super powerful and poignant, and I think that's really nice you're doing the home connection there. So thank you. You're welcome. Thank you.
[Cushing]: Also, and I can't remember if Rachel mentioned this, but this is now our second year in a row of combining the genders. Previously, Medford separated boys and girls. And so one of our ways of trying to be more inclusive is not by creating that level of stigma, by separating out the genders. Everyone will be together. And what our nurses like to offer anything to the conversation at this time. We have great nurses in our district and just, you know, checking in to make sure that if you have anything to add, feel free.
[Borriello]: I don't, I'll just speak. I don't have anything in particular to say, but just to reiterate that the nurses are also there with the Nexus teachers to support the education.
[Cushing]: Appreciate that.
[Perry]: Thank you so much for that. Yes.
[Cushing]: All right, if there are any other questions, feel free to raise your hand. You can also email Rachel at rperry at medford.k12.ma.us. She'll then be able to send our, excuse me, she'll then be able to send any questions to the nurses if you need. You can also email me anytime you want at pcushing at medford.k12.ma.us. And if there are no further questions at this time, then I want to wish everybody a great day. I am really excited that by offering this, it seems that we've gotten a lot more parents. So perhaps we'll offer it during the day and then an evening at some other point for other things moving forward. But I do want to thank everyone for being here.
[Perry]: And also, if you want to have a one on one meeting with me to kind of have, you know, talk about this or look at the actual lessons, I can make those appointments as well. Email me and we'll set something up.
[Roberto]: And I just want to add, this is one of the nurses. If your child feels uncomfortable talking to you and feels more comfortable talking to either the nexus teacher or the nurses, sometimes the kids will come down after class and talk to the nurses and ask those questions. So that is still an opportunity, even though Um, at the mess attack, we won't be in the classroom, but, um, if they need anything, then, um, they certainly can, uh, stop down.
[Cushing]: All right. Thank you, everybody. I really appreciate it. And as