On Feb. 25, the West Linn-Wilsonville school board unanimously voted to accept the changes to the statewide health curriculum proposed in 2015.

The vote, which had been postponed thanks to snow, included an open forum open to all parents and students who wanted to voice their concerns and beliefs about said curriculum. Audrey Lipsey, junior, was one of those students who decided to speak up.

“It was really encouraging to see my classmates go up there and share personal stories, and speak up about why we needed the health curriculum,” Lipsey said.

The health curriculum is aimed towards educating kids K-12 on topics like consent and mental health support.  One of the main goals of the bill was to promote safe sex amongst members of the LGBTQ+ community as the old curriculum barely touched on it at all if it even spoke about it.

So what does this mean for WLHS?

You can expect to see changes to the current wellness classes to ensure that sex education is not missed as well as the added LGBTQ+ sexual education.  More support for mental health may also be added.

Overall the passing of this could be seen as a victory for students speaking up.

“I honestly don’t know if this would’ve passed if we hadn’t gone a spoke about it.  But the fact that the school board members saw how passionate we were was what really changed the tide, and shows us just how powerful our voices can be,” Lipsey said.