‘We’re not leaving,’ say sex-ed critics

Group will meet next week to plot its next move

School board member Patricia B. O’Neill, expressing frustration at the out-of-town legal muscle in the case, suggested the attorneys with the Thomas More Law Center return to their headquarters in Ann Arbor, Mich.

‘‘Obviously, local folks are entitled to their opinion,” said O’Neill (Dist. 3) of Bethesda. ‘‘It’s fine for Montgomery County people to advocate, but not outside attorneys.”

When he heard O’Neill’s comment, Garza said: ‘‘We’re not going to get out of town or disappear. We’re not leaving.”

Garza is an attorney based in Rockville. The groups have also sought assistance the Liberty Counsel, with offices in Florida, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

The groups have until March 1 to file an appeal.

The groups argued before Circuit Court Judge William J. Rowan III on Jan. 16 that it was illegal to teach other forms of sex to teenagers, and to tell them that homosexuality is innate. The conservatives also argued that they never got the chance to air their grievances to the state school board, who sided with the county board in July over its decision to approve the lesson plans.

The lesson plans have long been contentious. After the school board initially approved the revisions, the groups filed a request for a stay with state Schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick to have the curriculum stopped before it could be piloted. After Grasmick denied the groups’ request, they filed the appeal with the state school board.

‘‘This court finds that there is nothing to demonstrate that the Board of Education’s opinion is arbitrary, unreasonable or illegal,” Rowan wrote in his 10-page opinion.

The sex-education lessons, with final revisions approved in June, includes a video on condom usage and two 45-minute lessons in eighth- and 10th-grade on sexual orientation. Ninety-five percent of eighth-graders participated in the lessons last October and 97 percent of 10th-graders participated in the lessons last month, according to school system data.

During the Jan. 16 briefing, school system attorney Judith S. Bresler said the court should not allow the opponents to rewrite the curriculum. On Friday, Superintendent Jerry D. Weast said he wants to move on.

‘‘We hope that we can put this litigation behind us now once and for all and move forward with our primary mission — educating our children,” he said in a statement. ‘‘Unfortunately, a small group of opponents has forced us to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend this curriculum in legal proceedings.”

To learn more

Go to www.gazette.net⁄links to read Circuit Court Judge William J. Rowan III’s decision in the school system’s sex-education case.