Erin's Law and HB 287 Curriculum
Why it is necessary and what you can expect your child to learn.
If you have a child in the Marietta City Schools district, you have received at least one and maybe two notices about Erin’s Law and HB 287, and you may be wondering: What are Erin’s Law and HB 287, and why is my child’s school presenting this program? We are here today to unpack the why behind Erin’s Law and HB 287 and what types of things you can expect your child to learn.
Erin’s Law was passed by the Georgia Legislature in 2018 and signed into law by Governor Nathan Deal. Part of a national push to protect children from sexual abuse, Georgia was the 35th state to enact legislation that requires public and private schools to provide sexual abuse prevention curriculum to their students in grades kindergarten through 9th grade every year.
Georgia House Bill 287 is similar in that it requires all public and private schools in the state to provide human trafficking awareness curriculum in grades 6-12 each year. This law has some teeth in that school systems could have their state funding pulled if they do not implement a yearly awareness program.
These sound like big heavy topics, especially for our youngest learners, but if done well following best practices and a good curriculum, your child will learn skills to protect themselves through age-appropriate content. This is not sex ed. The objective of Erin’s Law and HB 287 is to give kids the tools to build healthy relationships, have the words and resources to report abuse, and be street smart to avoid exploitation. According to state experts in child sexual abuse prevention and human trafficking prevention, these are the types of things you should expect your student to learn.
MCS elementary schools will be focusing on Erin’s Law sexual abuse prevention curriculum. Kindergarten through 2nd grade should learn things like proper names of body parts, healthy boundaries around physical touch, that affection and touch are never secrets, and that there are adults whom they can ask for help. Grades 3 and 4 build on these by adding setting and maintaining boundaries, dealing with conflict effectively, and building communication skills for healthy relationships. By 5th and 6th grade, students should continue to explore healthy relationships by learning non-violent and non-verbal communication skills, understanding the bystander role, and learning how to ask for help for themselves and others.
In 6th through 9th grade, there is overlap between Erin’s Law and HB 287 curriculum. Middle grades should continue to reinforce building communication skills to create healthy relationships and to model how to reach out for help. In 7th and 8th grade, students should learn to evaluate societal pressures on body image, gender norms, and sexual behavior. They should also begin to discuss concepts of sexual consent, the consequences of risky behavior, and the right to refuse to participate in risky behaviors including drug use, sexual activity, criminal activity, and bullying. By 8th grade they will be discussing more human trafficking specific material like identifying signs of human trafficking, how to report human trafficking, and how to be safe on social media and the internet.
By high school, students should be learning how to put their skills developed through the previous years to use. They should be talking through how to make decisions in risky situations, how to practice self-advocacy and bystander skills, where to find community sexual violence prevention and intervention resources, and clear and accurate information around the concept of consent. They also continue to learn about signs and situations that contribute to human trafficking, how to avoid them, and how to report concerns and seek help.
Courses that teach students to set and maintain healthy boundaries and develop strong communication skills prepare them for a life of healthy relationships, but they also teach kids skills to help them avoid being abused or exploited. Although some kids are at higher risk than others, in the internet age every kid with a cell phone and/or social media account has some level of risk of being targeted for exploitation and trafficking. Kids need street smarts and book smarts, and these Erin’s Law and HB 287 courses help them get those street smarts.
Some things we know about sex trafficking victims in Georgia and why we must start teaching this material so young: the average age of a youth removed from sex trafficking situations is around 14, but many of these same youth were trafficked for 1-2 years before they got help. Girls are at higher risk, but boys are vulnerable as well. Youth who have been in the foster care system and/or juvenile justice system are at higher risk. Runaways are at very high risk. Eighty to ninety percent of child sex trafficking victims in Georgia were sexually abused in the years before they were trafficked, so preventing sexual abuse through Erin’s Law courses goes a long way towards preventing sex trafficking.
No one wants to think human trafficking is happening in their community, but it is. Everywhere. Marietta has some unique risk factors that put some of the students in our system at higher risk. Our district straddles a major interstate which makes movement into and out of our community easy. We have a major professional sports stadium that attracts a lot of folks from outside the community. Ours is a high poverty school district. Most telling, though, is a history of underage sex trafficking victims being rescued from hotels on Delk Road and Windy Hill Road multiple times over the past few years. The market for trafficked youth is in our community already, and we need to prevent our students from being lured into that market.
Human trafficking is here, and we have to harden our community’s defenses against it. That starts with giving our students the tools and skills to create healthy boundaries and relationships, identify sketchy situations, and know where to get help and resources if they need them.
That’s what your kids should be learning in their Erin’s Law and HB 287 courses. You can ask the principal of your child’s school for a copy of the curriculum to have an informed discussion with your student and reinforce these lessons learned at home.
February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, yet another thing we don’t want to think about our students experiencing, but some do. The Criminal Justice Coordinating Council’s Statewide Human Trafficking Task Force is presenting an online lunch and learn program entitled, Teen Dating Violence: An Overview, on Tuesday, February 13, 2024 at noon. The program is free, online, and open to the public. You can register here.