So, what prompted the change? According to former State Superintendent Dr. Michael F. Rice, there was a desire to update the 2007 Health Education Standards to “better reflect current trends, terminology, and best practices and to be more culturally responsive…”

In comparison, the 2007 standards was a sixteen-page document and covered: Nutrition and Physical Activity, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs, Safety, Social and Emotional Health, Personal Health and Wellness, HIV Prevention, and the optional Sexuality Education.

The newly passed 2025 version, is seventy-five pages and the content takes an entirely different focus.

State Board of Education Member Nikki Snyder said that with the update, the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) “is infusing sex education topics into Health Education Standards that are required for graduation.”

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Snyder added that Health Education is a required credit under the Michigan Merit Curriculum “and there is no parental opt out for it.”

Before the new standards were passed on November 13, 2025, in a 6–2 vote by the State Board of Education, there were two months of debate.

On September 9, the MDE presented a 40-page draft of the new standards—which they termed a “Framework”—at a State Board of Education meeting. There was then a 30-day period during which the Board collected feedback through public comment, a survey, social media, and email.‍

House Oversight Committee Not in Favor
On October 28, Interim State Superintendent Dr. Sue C. Carnell presented the Framework to the House Oversight Committee. During the meeting, Chair Representative Jay DeBoyer  asked Carnell why required topics from the state Health Code were omitted—vision, narcotics, accident prevention, dental hygiene, hygiene, alcohol, tobacco, drugs, nutrition, mental health—while the new standards mention reproductive health seven times, sexual orientation twice, gender four times, advocacy eight times and sexual health 21 times.

“What is the fixation on the sexual activity that is so predominant…?” DeBoyer asked. “There are a lot of things in the proposed guidelines that do not line up with the beliefs of parents.”

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DeBoyer flat out asked Carnell how many genders there are. She replied that different people have different beliefs. Given that she understood people have different beliefs, he asked why gender identity was being added to the curriculum to be taught to children. Carnell explained that children who are “gender diverse” are being bullied and can’t make education gains if they feel unsafe, adding that the standards point to understanding tolerance.

Voicing the concern of parents who want MDE to focus on the basics, DeBoyer asked Carnell how Michigan is doing in math and reading, and when had there last been curriculum updates for the core subjects? She presumed updates had happened in the last five years, and acknowledged those subjects need work, adding again that students need to feel safe to excel. DeBoyer furthered his point recalling Michigan is about 47th in the nation for education.

The new standards claim to base their intent around and in alignment with the Michigan Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (Public Act 6 of 2023), instructing that students be taught the definitions surrounding gender identity and diversity which includes provisions that ensure equal opportunities for a quality education and promotes inclusivity—including sexual orientation and gender identity or expression as protected categories. The standards ask local districts to remember that if they include lessons on these topics, materials must be medically accurate and age appropriate.

How does one teach gender ideology while being medically accurate?

The standards go on to say that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Academy of Pediatrics claim that when topics such as gender identity are presented appropriately, children experience lower rates of bullying, harassment, and suicide, and that children must feel safe to excel. It seems the MDE and apparently the medical field proport that safety comes from a belief in gender ideology.

During the Oversight meeting, Committee Member State Rep. Brad Paquette reflected that the term, “gender identity” used to be “gender identity disorder.” It’s been “medicalized categorically as a mental disorder.” He said that the new standards encourage young people in a very confusing time—such a puberty—to embrace the disorder and inevitably tend to tread down a medicalized path.

Paquette added, “Sex cannot be changed and that is a hundred percent truth. We need to teach that to young people because that’s what love does. You tell people the truth, and you don’t mislead them down a path that is untrue.”

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Carnell responded that there are other viewpoints to what Paquette was saying and that there are people who have their sexual identity changed. Committee Member Representative Steve Carra followed up by asking Carnell if a male with XY chromosomes mutilates a body part and pretends to be a female, does that make him a female.

Immersion into the Curriculum
In addition to gender content appearing in sex education and health education, the new standards “outline the progression of the practice across topics and grade spans,” providing transferability to multiple disciplines.

Committee Member Rep. Jaime Greene commented that the transferability invites sensitive sexual and social content into every subject, throughout all the curriculums, without any boundary or parent notification.

Committee Member Rep. Gina Johnson agreed, saying that by embedding these topics into health instruction, MDE is effectively making them mandatory topics and removing parent choice—which undermines local authority and crosses the line that the legislature already defined in law. Rather than modernizing the standards, Johnson said the Framework is overreach, indoctrination, politically biased, and clearly sexualizes our children. With 16 being the age of consent in Michigan, by teaching these topics to younger students, is the Framework encouraging sexual activity and illegal activity?

Committee Member Rep. Angela Rigas commented that the new standards “almost feel like” there’s been “an obsession to interject sexuality and perversion into not only this curriculum and standards, but [into making sure] all subjects have the ability to teach that."‍

Opt Out Becomes Muddy
Carnell reminded Oversight Committee members that the Framework allows parents to opt out of anything related to sex ed.

Attorney David A. Kallman of Kallman Legal Group was in attendance to weigh in on the Framework. He found no clear opt-out provision within the standards regarding health and health standards and only an opt out from sex education. “Opting out of sex education does not apply to Health Standards,” he said.

So, if gender content is embedded throughout the curriculum, and opting out only applies to sex education, what does that mean for those whose beliefs disagree with gender ideology?

Senator Lana Theis spoke, calling from the rejection of the proposed Framework. “It’s an activist document,” she said, “not a neutral education curriculum. And its effects won’t be neutral either.”

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Theis did not believe environmental health or activism should be a part of health education. “When you are encouraging the kids to be activists, even against their parents, because of a moral worldview, you are harming the children…. Teach them health. Then we get back to teaching them reading, writing, and math. We teach them to treat other the way they want to be treated.” She added that to keep kids from feeling unsafe, we should stop lecturing them about how unsafe they are.

Attorney Kallman pointed to the core academic curriculum that talks about the attitudes, beliefs, value systems, etc., claiming that the new standards violate parents’ rights. He said it would be the same if MDE decided to affirm anorexia. This doesn’t mean you treat people poorly or that you don’t get them help. But it also doesn’t mean that the state should take a position and then tell everyone they have to do it, or they won’t be able to graduate. It veers away from schools teaching academic to teaching their social justice issues.

And why not have opt in? Parents are busy. They easily can miss an opportunity to opt out. Opting in would reflect a conscious decision to have their child included.

Feedback, Edits, and Final Version
By the close of the thirty days for feedback, MDE stated they’d received 1338 completed surveys completed. 924 of those responding opposed the Framework. The main reasons given were 1. Not wanting gender identity in the health standards, 2. Not wanting sex education in the Health Standards, 3. Concern that the “opt out” option for parents had been eliminated.

250 surveys returned supported the Framework. The main reasons given were 1. The need for an update, 2. The guideline was inclusive, 3. The guideline aligns with the national standards passed a year ago.  

MDE also reported that the members of the State Board of Education had received 2000 emails concerning the Framework, with 896 opposed and over 1100 in support. Similar reasons to the survey were given. Letters of support came from the Parent Teacher Association, Parent Action for Healthy Kids, and the Red, Wine and Blue Michigan.

Based on the feedback received, the MDE created a new draft—upping the page count from 40 to 75—keeping the gender content, adding clarity around sex education and the opt out option, and outlining the state laws that supported the writing of the new standards.

It would appear more weight was placed on the feedback from associations, pediatricians, and colleagues than from parent comments.

The new and final version is now called the Standards Guidelines.‍

State Board of Education Debates the Guidelines
On November 13, MDE appeared before the State Board of Education to seek approval for the Guidelines.

Two of the board members—lone Republicans Nikki Snyder and Tom McMillin—opposed the Guidelines. McMillin said that regarding the latest version, nothing that public comment found objectional was removed or changed in any significant way.

Snyder questioned who had written the Guidelines because only members of the State Board of Education have the statutory authority to develop standards. The presenters from the MDE acknowledged that none of the Board members had done the writing, but did not have the names to provide. “There is key federal legislation and state legislation that defines what health education is in our schools,” Snyder said. “None of it includes sex education. That is intentional. That is historical.” She called the MDE’s actions a "legislative overstep" and said the department was conflating two different statutes.

McMillin called out MDE’s claim regarding how many personal emails Board members had received on the topic and whether the senders were for or against the Guidelines, saying they wouldn’t have that information. He asked the presenters what the penalty is if a teacher fails to give parents a warning to opt out with sex ed. There was no response. “You all know very clearly that there’s no penalty,” he said. “There should be a firing if done twice. There should be a $5000 fine for the district every time. It’s ridiculous.”

Katherine Bussard, Executive Director of Salt and Light Global, had shared at the Oversight Committee meeting that there are Michigan parents whose children have been taught topics though parents had opted them out. And now the damage was done. Their child was exposed to something against their values. The only remedy parents have is to get an attorney.

Snyder spoke about how all parents have rights but no one parent or group of parents has the right to weaponize a government-run school to adopt certain values or beliefs. Whereas Board Member Senator Marshall Bullock II said, “Parental rights are not absolute… It’s supported to be a balanced share responsibility with parental rights, I think.” He also said that he didn’t know where it says MDE can’t create standards.

During the public comment portion of the Board meeting, parents had one more opportunity to weigh in before the vote on the Guidelines. Disappointing to many, comment time was cut from three minutes to one minute for individuals and from ten minutes to five for those wishing to do a group comment. Since there were 82 in person commenters, 50 waiting online, several Board members claimed the reduced time would allow everyone a chance to speak.

Both Snyder and McMillin argued that they thought it was the responsibility of the Board to sit there as long as necessary to hear everyone’s full comment and “endure the responsibility of good governance.”

McMillin wanted it known that “on this extremely important topic… the Democrats want to silence and try to keep quiet as much as they can, anything factual or any opinions of the public."

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Parents Speak
Some of the themes of those who spoke against the new standards included:

• The Intentional exposing of a child to sexually explicit content while undermining the authority of a parent is considered grooming behavior by a predator.

• It is normal for kids to go through stages and body changes. No school staff member should counsel students to think the reason they feel a certain way is because they are trans or homosexual.

• We talk about safe adults. Safe adults do not lie to children and tell them they can change their gender.

• The Elliott Larsen Law is based on discrimination. It doesn’t mean that we need to teach the kids gender identity.

• Bullying isn’t about gender. It’s about people and how they treat others.

• This isn’t about raising healthy kids. It’s about pushing ideology under the guise of curing bullying. Bullying should be handled through parents and administration, not through political lessons in the curriculum.

• Opinions should not be taught as curriculum. Facts are fact. It doesn’t matter how many drugs you give them, how many surgeries they have, or what they wear, their sex does not change.

Parents quoted this verse from the Bible: Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6 (KJV)

And parents quoted these sections from the Michigan Constitution:

• Article 1, Section 4: “Every person shall be at liberty to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.” Any policy, proposal, or curriculum that infringes upon this liberty, whether through compelled ideology or sexualized instruction, stands in open violation of the supreme law of the state.

• Article 8, Section 1: “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind. Schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” Public education was never meant to undermine morality or compel beliefs belief systems contrary to conscience.

• Article 8, Section 2: “Every school district shall provide for the education of its pupils without discrimination as to religion, creed, race, color, or national origin.”.

Those who supported the new standards tended to be parents who said they were transgender or have kids who say they are, or teachers and physicians who had worked with kids who said they were transgender.

One supporting comment that stood out was from a mother who said:

“I'm the parent of three. One of them is a transgender boy. I support these standards… We know what this is about. Deniers lost the bathroom more… Nobody's teaching your kids gender identity. They already know. They're just too scared to tell you about it. Bottom line is you don't have to believe in it. You don't have to accept it. But it exists. Adolescence is hard enough without trans 14-year-old boys getting pregnant because nobody taught them they could.”

The Board passed the Guidelines in a 6–2 vote, the two voting against were McMillin and Snyder.‍

Now What?
Though the Trump Administration has made strides with Title IX, Snyder explained that the Michigan Department of Education is "disregarding a US Supreme Court opinion and interpreting Michigan laws as if they are a judge and legislatures… There is no real accountability to their actions whatsoever. The governor has no power or authority over the DOE or its employees that are led by a superintendent mostly selected by a majority of one political party since 1963. That majority has refused to do anything about the most controversial issues that parents have brought before that State Board of Education for decades.”

And that is what happened when the State Board of Education voted 6–2 to pass the Guidelines. The sex education standards now will appear to be disguised as the health education credit required for graduation though the new standards claim “school districts will have discretion to determine how the standards guidelines will be implemented at the local level within the parameters of Michigan law.”  

Parents, grandparents, taxpayers, now is the time to let your local school board know your thoughts on whether the new standards should be taught in your district.

Or maybe we're passed that. Could this be the final push parents needed to pull their kids out of the public school system?

Senator Lana Theis reminds parents that sex education is supposed to be optional, and parents are to be informed in advance. Additionally, it’s important to know that schools need to abide by the Guidelines in order for their accreditation to remain. “While they’re not required to adopt these new standards, there's a lot of pressure associated with it.” She added that parents can take their school to court because it’s violating federally First Amendment rights. It’s also violating teachers’ First Amendment rights who disagree with teaching these topics.

When asked if the goal should be to let parents have control, Snyder said: “Absolutely. They’re their children.”