By Kevin Boneske
Staff Writer
ASHWAUBENON – A new human growth and development text for seventh-graders is among the district’s updated middle school health curriculum and support materials for the 2018-19 school year.
The Ashwaubenon school board agreed Wednesday, Sept. 12, to spend $4,688.68, including $141.25 for shipping, to buy the new text titled “Essential Health Skills for Middle School.”
Jill Kieslich, curriculum and instruction director, and Sherry Craig, middle school physical education and health teacher, appeared before the board regarding the updated human growth and development curriculum.
Kieslich noted the topics of human trafficking and inappropriate texting (i.e. sexting) along with their consequences have been added to the curriculum as recommended by the Human Growth and Development Committee.
She said Craig and Eric Miller, high school physical education and health teacher, worked on curriculum revisions to make sure those two topics have been added at both the middle and high school.
“Not only did they include the whole sexting and human trafficking piece with the school liaison officers, but they really got into some of the issues that are affecting our students today, whether it’s bullying, whether it’s cyberbullying, and also they really have hit the e-cigarettes, which I think is very interesting,” Kieslich said. “They were a wealth of information.”
Kieslich noted the previous middle school text was copyrighted in 2009 and needed to be updated.
Sixty-five new textbooks and online materials will be used at the seventh-grade level, Kieslich said, while the high school human growth and development curriculum won’t include a textbook.