[Effective 7/1/2024]

(a) A family life curriculum shall, to the extent that the topic and the manner of communication is age-appropriate:

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Terms Used In Tennessee Code 49-6-1304 v2

  • Abstinence: means not participating in any activity that puts an individual at risk for pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease. See Tennessee Code 49-6-1301
  • Age-appropriate: means designed to teach concepts, information and skills based on the social, cognitive, emotional and experience level of most students at a particular age level. See Tennessee Code 49-6-1301
  • Gateway sexual activity: means sexual contact, as defined in subdivision (14), that could precipitate engagement in a nonabstinent behavior. See Tennessee Code 49-6-1301
  • Guardian: A person legally empowered and charged with the duty of taking care of and managing the property of another person who because of age, intellect, or health, is incapable of managing his (her) own affairs.
  • Medically accurate: means information that is grounded in evidence-based, peer-reviewed science and research. See Tennessee Code 49-6-1301
  • Minor: means any person who has not attained eighteen (18) years of age. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
  • Parent: means the parent, guardian, person who has custody of the child, or individual who has caregiving authority under §. See Tennessee Code 49-6-1301
  • Person: includes a corporation, firm, company or association. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
  • Property: includes both personal and real property. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
  • Puberty: means a developmental stage during which the pituitary gland triggers the production of testosterone in boys and the production of estrogen and progesterone in girls. See Tennessee Code 49-6-1301
  • Risk avoidance: means an approach that encourages the prevention of participation in risk behaviors as opposed to merely reducing the consequences of those risk behaviors. See Tennessee Code 49-6-1301
  • sex: means a person's immutable biological sex as determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth and evidence of a person's biological sex. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
  • Sexual activity: means sexual penetration or sexual contact, or both. See Tennessee Code 49-6-1301
  • State: when applied to the different parts of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the several territories of the United States. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
  • Year: means a calendar year, unless otherwise expressed. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
(1) Emphatically promote only sexual risk avoidance through abstinence, regardless of a student’s current or prior sexual experience;
(2) Encourage sexual health by helping students understand how sexual activity affects the whole person including the physical, social, emotional, psychological, economic and educational consequences of nonmarital sexual activity;
(3) Teach the positive results of avoiding sexual activity, the skills needed to make healthy decisions, the advantages of and skills for student success in pursuing educational and life goals, the components of healthy relationships, and the social science research supporting the benefits of reserving the expression of human sexual activity for marriage;
(4) Provide factually and medically-accurate information;
(5) Teach students how to form pro-social habits that enable students to develop healthy relationships, create strong marriages, and form safe and stable future families;
(6) Encourage students to communicate with a parent, guardian, or other trusted adult about sex or other risk behaviors;
(7) Assist students in learning and practicing refusal skills that will help them resist sexual activity;
(8) Address the benefits of raising children within the context of a marital relationship and the unique challenges that single teen parents encounter in relation to educational, psychological, physical, social, legal, and financial factors;
(9) Discuss the interrelationship between teen sexual activity and exposure to other risk behaviors such as smoking, underage drinking, drug use, criminal activity, dating violence, and sexual aggression;
(10) Educate students on the age of consent, puberty, pregnancy, childbirth, sexually transmitted diseases, including but not limited to HIV/AIDS, and the financial and emotional responsibility of raising a child;
(11) Teach students how to identify and form healthy relationships, and how to identify and avoid unhealthy relationships;
(12) Notwithstanding § 49-6-1302(a)(1), inform students, in all LEAs, concerning the process of adoption and its benefits. The state board of education, with the assistance of the department of education, shall develop guidelines for appropriate kindergarten through grade twelve (K-12) instruction on adoption, what adoption is, and the benefits of adoption. The guidelines shall be distributed by the department of education to each LEA by the start of the 2015-2016 school year;
(13) Provide instruction on the detection, intervention, prevention, and treatment of:

(B) Human trafficking in which the victim is a child; and
(C) Internet crimes against children involving sexting, sextortion, and the exploitation of a minor, which includes the following offenses:

(i) Solicitation of a minor, as defined in § 39-13-528;
(ii) Soliciting sexual exploitation of a minor, as defined in § 39-13-529(a);
(iii) Exploitation of a minor by electronic means, as defined in § 39-13-529(b );
(iv) Sexual exploitation of a minor, as defined in § 39-17-1003;
(v) Aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, as defined in § 39-17-1004; and
(vi) Especially aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, as defined in § 3917-1005; and
(14) Provide instruction on the prevention of dating violence.
(b) Instruction of the family life curriculum shall not:

(1) Promote, implicitly or explicitly, any gateway sexual activity or health message that encourages students to experiment with noncoital sexual activity;
(2) Provide or distribute materials on school grounds that condone, encourage or promote student sexual activity among unmarried students;
(3) Display or conduct demonstrations with devices specifically manufactured for sexual stimulation; or
(4) Distribute contraception on school property; provided, however, that medically accurate information about contraception and condoms that is consistent with public policy may be provided so long as the information is:

(A) Presented in a manner consistent with this part and that clearly informs students that while such methods may reduce the risk of acquiring sexually transmitted diseases or becoming pregnant, only abstinence removes all risk;
(B) Reviewed and approved by the local board of education or charter school governing body, prior to the information being used by the LEA or public charter school in a family life curriculum, to ensure that it is:

(i) Medically accurate;
(ii) Age appropriate;
(iii) In compliance with this part; and
(iv) Aligned to academic standards in this state; and
(C) Provided, upon request, to a parent of a student attending a school in the LEA or charter school, to allow the parent to review the information and to opt the parent’s student out of receiving the information as part of a family life curriculum, without penalty.
(c) The Tennessee joint task force on children’s justice and child sexual abuse, established by the department of children’s services pursuant to§ 37-1-603, in consultation with the children’s services advisory council, established by the commissioner of children’s services or the commissioner’s designee pursuant to § 37-5-105(12), shall annually recommend to the department of education age-appropriate curricula that LEAs and public charter schools may use to provide the instruction described in subdivision (a)(13). The department of education shall annually notify LEAs and public charter schools of the curricula recommended by the joint task force.
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