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Committee examines bill to require local jurisdictions to adopt comprehensive health education framework
Summary
HB 161 would require local school systems to adopt a comprehensive, age‑appropriate health education framework that adds health promotion, gender identity/sexual orientation content, and online safety while preserving parental opt‑out procedures for family life/human sexuality.
Delegate Vanessa Atterberry told the Ways and Means Committee the bill requires each local jurisdiction to establish a comprehensive health education framework that includes health promotion, mental and emotional health, substance use prevention, family life and human sexuality, gender identity and sexual orientation, safety and violence prevention, online safety and healthy eating.
Atterberry said the bill keeps existing opt‑out protections for the family life/human sexuality module: "if you would like to opt out of the family life or opt out of the human [sexuality] topic, then a parent can." She noted HIV/AIDS prevention remains required by federal law and cannot be opted out.
Committee members probed the bill’s treatment of gender identity and sexual orientation. Delegate Buckle asked whether listing gender identity and sexual orientation separately meant parents could not opt their children out of those lessons; Atterberry answered it was deliberate because some jurisdictions had removed instruction on those topics and the bill urges comprehensive coverage. "If theoretically then a school system said within our family life and human [sexuality] curricular module that's where we're including the gender identity and sexual orientation component ... the opt out provision still exists," Atterberry said.
Delegate Miller and others asked about grade‑level starts. MSDE and the sponsor noted the current Maryland Comprehensive Health Education Framework contains age‑appropriate learning standards beginning in kindergarten that, for example, ask students to "recognize a range of ways people identify and express their gender" and to "treat people of all gender identities and expressions with dignity and respect." Committee members also discussed enforcement and MSDE’s authority to withhold funds where local systems do not meet required standards.
Opposition letters from some local boards — including Howard County — emphasized local control. The sponsor said the bill is intended to encourage jurisdictions to teach the identified topics comprehensively while retaining local procedures for opt‑out and reporting.
Ending: No committee action at the hearing. Sponsors urged a favorable report; committee members requested clarifying language around opt‑out, grade level implementation, and enforcement.
