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OKLAHOMA


Oklahoma Sexuality Education Law and Policy


Oklahoma does not require schools to teach sexuality education. However, the state Departments of Education and Health must develop curricula and materials and keep them current. If a school district chooses to teach sexuality education, all curricula and materials must be approved for medical accuracy by the state and by the district superintendent. All materials must also be available to parents for review. Each public school must establish an advisory committee to make recommendations regarding health education. In addition, all sexuality education classes must have as one of their primary purposes “the teaching of or informing students about the practice of abstinence.”


Schools are required to provide HIV/AIDS-prevention education. This education must be limited to the “discussion of the disease AIDS and its spread and prevention.” The class must be taught once during either grade 5 or 6, once during grades 7 through 9, and once during grades 10 through 12. All curricula and materials must be checked for medical accuracy by the Oklahoma Department of Health and must only include “factual medical information for AIDS prevention.” HIV/AIDS education must specifically teach that:


  • Engaging in homosexual activity, promiscuous sexual activity, intravenous drug use or contact with contaminated blood products is now known to be primarily responsible for contact with the AIDS virus;
  • Artificial means of birth control are not a certain means of preventing the spread of the AIDS virus and reliance on such methods puts a person at risk for exposure to the disease;
  • Avoiding the activities specified in paragraph 1 of this subsection is the only method of preventing the spread of the virus; and
  • Sexual intercourse, with or without condoms, with any person testing positive for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) antibodies, or any other person infected with HIV, places that individual in a high risk category for developing AIDS.

In addition, the Priority Academic Student Skills (PASS) Integrated Curriculum: Health, Safety, and Physical Education includes standards for HIV/AIDS education in seventh through twelfth grades. These standards outline that instruction must:


  • Investigate and examine current information about HIV/AIDS in order to differentiate related facts, opinions, and myths;
  • Examine and identify the importance of sexual abstinence in adolescent relationships;
  • Demonstrate refusal skills (saying “no”), negotiation skills and peer resistance skills related to sexual health;
  • Analyze the transmission and methods of prevention for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and HIV;
  • Identify risk behaviors and situations involving possible exposure to HIV;
  • Examine the relationships between injecting drug use (IDU) and contact with contaminated blood products and the transmission of HIV; and
  • Analyze the efficiency of artificial means of birth control in preventing the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

A school district must provide written notification of all sexuality and HIV/AIDS prevention classes. Parents or guardians can submit written notification if they do not want their children to participate in such classes. This is referred to as an “opt-out” policy.


See Oklahoma Statutes 70-11-103.3 and 70-11-105.1 and the Priority Academic Student Skills (PASS) Integrated Curriculum: Health, Safety, and Physical Education.