Subscribe
NewsOne Featured Video
CLOSE

When parent Mark Ellis (pictured) saw the photo of a sex ed poster his 13-year-old middle schooler had taken as it hung from the door of her classroom, he became incensed. The poster, which displayed such graphic terms as “anal sex,” “grinding and “oral sex,” was enough for the irate dad to take his complaints to the media, according to Fox News.

Ellis, whose daughter is an 8th grader at Hocker Grove Middle School in Shawnee, Kan., first thought the picture was a joke done in poor taste. “I looked at my wife, we looked at each other and I was hoping it was a prank a student had pulled. I got furious. And I’m still worked up about it.”

But it wasn’t a prank at all. The poster was approved by school district.

The heading of the poster posed the question, “How Do People Express Their Sexual Feelings?” The answers to the question were divided in two columns. There were innocent responses such as “Dancing,” “Saying, ”I Like You,'” “Holding Hands,” “Talking.” The racier responses Ellis found inappropriate were “Anal Sex,” “Oral Sex,” “Vaginal Intercourse,” “Touching Each Other’s Genitals,” and “Grinding.”

Ellis is not the only parent who was taken aback by the explicit poster. Jennifer Watland, the mom of Lyssa, an 8th grader at the school, told the news outlet she is all for sex ed but did not expect to see the terms mentioned on the poster. She also claims the school never sent a notice stating that sexual acts would be discussed. “That is alarming, I’m not going to lie, absolutely alarming,” the mom told Fox News.

Lyssa, on the other hand, doesn’t think the poster is such a big deal. “It’s just a poster, eye-popping, but it’s better they show us now than later on. There are kids honestly that are my age who are sexually active and they don’t know the consequences.”

Meanwhile, the school’s superintendent sent out a notice to all of the school’s parents stating the poster and sex ed course that goes along with it would be shelved for now, pending further review of the materials used.