SANGER, Calif. (FOX26) — Parents packed a Sanger Unified School Board meeting Tuesday night, calling on district leaders to do more to review course content and notify families when students could be exposed to graphic or sexually explicit material.
The concerns center on an art course offered to high school students through Sanger Unified’s dual-enrollment partnership with Reedley College. Parents say some of the material shown in the class crossed a line and that families should have been warned beforehand.
Ranetta Bron, a Sanger Unified school board trustee representing Area One, said she enrolled her 15-year-old son in the course and was surprised by the material he encountered.
Among the artwork shown to students were images depicting a do-it-yourself abortion, as well as references to sexual topics including finding the G-spot and lubricant.
“In this case, the district failed to first preview the content and notify parents that this was going to be a part of the art class,” Bron said.
The course is part of Sanger Unified’s dual-enrollment program with Reedley College. The district says students and parents are informed before enrollment that dual-enrollment courses are college-level classes and that students are expected to meet college-level academic requirements.
According to the district, the curriculum and course requirements are established by Reedley College and are not modified specifically for high school students because participants are earning college credit.
Bron acknowledged that parents understand their children are taking college courses, but said she did not expect an introductory art class to include sexually explicit material.
Parents who spoke during Tuesday’s meeting said the issue was not simply that the material was challenging or mature, but that they believed families were not given enough information about what students could encounter.
One parent said she felt the material represented a loss of childhood innocence, while another called the content inappropriate for children.
The artwork at the center of the controversy comes from Womanhouse, a 1972 exhibition created through the Feminist Art Program at California State University, Fresno. The project gave women an opportunity to explore their experiences and identities through art.
One parent said she routinely asked her son how class was going, but that his responses were limited to describing it as “boring,” “weird” or “dumb.”
She said she could hardly imagine a 15-year-old trying to explain to his mother that he had been shown artwork depicting a coat-hanger abortion.
Bron is now asking the district to consider a formal course-review process to prevent similar concerns in the future.
She said administrators indicated the district most likely would not use the course with that particular teacher again. However, Bron said she wants the review process formally established in board policy so future decisions are not left to individual administrators.
The debate highlights the challenge districts face when high school students participate in college-level courses: balancing college academic standards and curriculum with parents’ expectations about age-appropriate content and advance notice.
Sanger Unified has not indicated that the dual-enrollment program itself will be discontinued. Instead, the focus of Tuesday’s meeting was on whether additional review and notification procedures should be put in place for courses that may contain graphic, sexual or otherwise sensitive material.