OER: Human Sexuality and �Substance Use Prevention

March 5, 2026

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Oregon Department of Education

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Sasha Grenier (she/her) MPH, CHES

Sexuality Education Specialist

Office of Teaching Learning and Assessment

Sasha.Grenier@ode.oregon.gov

Alanna Russell (she/her) MN, RN

Substance Use Prevention Education Coordinator

Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Alanna.Russell@ode.oregon.gov

Susannah Lightbourne-Maynard (she/her)

Teacher on Special Assignment

Portland Public Schools

slightbournemaynard@pps.net

This slide deck is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 license. 

Inclusive Welcome

In the chat, type one word that comes to mind when you think of your K-12 health education experience.

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Agenda

• Welcome and Introductions
• Health Education in Oregon
• Sexuality Education: Background, Development, and Collection Overview
• Substance Use Prevention: Background, Development, and Collection Overview
• Educator Spotlight
• Q & A
• Intentional Close

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Health Standards

• The Oregon State Board of Education adopted the current Health Education Standards  on October 19, 2023. �
• The K-12 Health Standards include the following Topic Areas:
• Wellness and Health Promotion (WHP)
• Safety and First Aid (SFA)
• Substance Use, Misuse, and Abuse (SUB)
• Food, Nutrition, and Physical Activity (FNP)
• Social, Emotional, and Mental Health (SEM)
• Healthy Relationships and Violence/Abuse Prevention (HRVP)
• Growth and Development (GD)
• Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH)

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• In addition to the Health Standards, annual instruction requirements exist for substance use prevention and human sexuality education.�

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   Sex Ed Open Learning

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Sex ed is health promotion and violence prevention

Sexuality education supports young people* in developing skills to…

• Delay sexual initiation
• Prevent unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs)
• Develop healthy friendships and relationships
• Reduce sexual violence, harassment, and bullying

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Sexuality education also creates supportive and inclusive environments for LGBTQ+ students in order to decrease negative mental health outcomes and bullying based on identity.

*According to the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Public Health Association, and many more.

Two Sex Ed Open Learning initiatives 

• Community-developed lessons through mini grants (40 lessons)
• Subgrant and contractor-developed lessons (42 lessons)

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• 6 grantees from schools, local public health departments, and community-based organizations.

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• Each grant was for $15,000-$25,000.

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The Process

• Application process
• Required a plan for community, youth input
• Full day training for grantees
• Monthly office hours
• Oregon open learning hub 101
• Hearing from youth
• Formative assessment
• Instructional supports & culturally responsive teaching
• Discussion with civil rights/Title IX guest
• Equity in sex ed
• Two review stages and feedback sessions

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Community co-design

scanning for other K-5 curriculums nationally and statewide that look at healthy sexuality, bodily autonomy and safety, as well as anti-racism, EDI

working with a LGBTQ inclusive reproductive endocrinologist to ensure that the material is medically accurate and inclusive

hosted a community Forum [with a] interpreter for our Spanish speaking community

met with 3 different GSA groups to discuss Health & Sexuality, met with a group of elementary teachers, developed 2 lessons to present to K-5 students, created a video and digital anatomy drawings for these lessons

recruited a coworker to crochet some awesome genital models that are going to make presenting (both virtual and in person) so much easier!

brought three of these mini lessons to adult professional groups so they could vet them. We then plan to bring the mini lessons to groups of students

looking into other ways to talk about empathy and emotional regulation in the younger lessons

piloting the lessons with REV youth in the next few weeks to get feedback on the content and structure.

we modified the lessons and brought them to the Black Student Union and the Hispanic/LatinX Student Union

worked on illustrations with a local graphic designer

Met with Deschutes and Malheur school districts to discuss strategies for providing CSE to rural communities

reviewed the lessons for racial, ethnic and cultural inclusiveness.

[a partner is] sculpting two lessons about family/kinship/community.

met with our Assistant Sup to discuss creating student stakeholder groups

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Looking at the lessons

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Implementation and scale-up

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• Developed a user guide
• Scaled up project with federal ESSER funding

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Elementary ESSER-funded OER

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Key Components

Social Science Lessons

• Create opportunities for students to learn about each other in ways that celebrate & explore the rich diversity of Oregon's communities.
• Share the often untold contributions and perspectives of people who are Native American or Americans of African, Asian, Pacific Island, Chicano, Latino, Jewish, or Middle Eastern descent. They also include women, people with disabilities, immigrants, refugees, and members of the LGBTQ2SIA+ community.

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Sex Education Lessons

• Are age-appropriate and introduce foundational health and safety content and skills.
• Are strengths-based and are built on principles of positive youth development
• Emphasize respect and empathy for all of our students and their families, as one way to reduce bullying, violence, abuse, and discrimination.
• Include evidence-based violence & abuse prevention strategies

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Both collections

• Translated in Spanish and UDL
• Available through Oregon Open Learning 

Developing the lessons

• Contract with Portland Public Schools and subgrants with national sex ed experts Advocates for Youth.
• Weekly meetings
• Community Engagement and Youth Survey
• Student and educator piloting, user testing
• Multiple draft reviews
• Developed professional learning videos and teacher guide

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Looking at the lessons

Oregon Department of Education

Substance Use Prevention Lessons

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Oregon Department of Education

Substance Use Standards: Why it Matters

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• School-based prevention education that emphasizes evidence-based strategies such building self-efficacy, refusal skills, and healthy peer relationships has been shown to positively impact substance use rates among youth^1.

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• Substance use contributes to leading causes of death amongst youth in Oregon.�
• More than half (64%) of the youth overdose deaths in 2023 had at least one bystander present. ​

"[Prevention education] offers skill-building opportunities to analyze cultural influences, communicate effectively and make decisions in navigating internal and external factors related to substance use. "

-From the Oregon K-12 Health Standards Instructional Practices

1. Washington State Healthcare Authority, "Prevention tools: What works, what doesn't?"

Background

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• The Oregon K-12 Health Standards include Substance Use Prevention(SUB) as a Topic Area. �
• SUB Standards are included at every grade level�
• Division 22 and OAR 581-022-2045 requires that districts develop Comprehensive Substance Use Prevention and Intervention Plans that include:
• K-12 instruction, including annual instruction in grades 9-12, that: 
• Aligns with 2023 Health Standards 
• Utilizes Annually Required Opioid Prevention Lessons 
• The Need: Only one instructional material was adopted by the State Board for K-5. Additionally, annual instruction in grades 9-12 often occurs outside of a designated health class.

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Timeline of Development

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Developing the Lessons

• Partnership with WestEd and Cairn Guidance�
• Regular (often weekly) meetings to inform content, structure, and design�
• Collaboration and review by subject matter experts across state agencies to ensure that lessons were:
• Standards-aligned
• Medically-accurate
• Evidence-informed

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ODE K-12 Lessons

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• User materials
• Lesson plans
• PowerPoints
• Handouts

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• Key characteristics of materials
• Grade-specific
• Use supportive teaching strategies
• Health and TSEL standards-aligned
• 6-8 available in Spanish

Looking at Lessons

• K-1: Medicine Safety and Rules to Follow�
• 2-3: Making Healthy Choices, Feelings, and Tricky Situations�
• 4-5: Safe and Healthy Use of Medicine and Other Substances�
• 6-8: Identifying Influences and Determining Reasons Young People Choose Not to Use�
• 9-10: Youth Brain Development and Affects of Substance Use�
• 11-12: Navigating Hard Conversations That Matter, Talking About Substance Use with Empathy

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Training Educators

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• 108 Participants (27 districts, 5 ESDs, 6 community partners)
• 22% of participants were teachers

• Trainings covered:  
• Substance use background knowledge
• Substance use prevention laws and requirements
• Analyzing Oregon substance use trends
• Building belonging in the classroom
• K-12 Substance Use Prevention Health Standards
• ODE K-12 Substance Use Prevention Lessons
• Best practices in prevention education
• Adapting the lessons for all learners
• Local, state, and federal prevention resources

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OER in Action�Portland Public Schools

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Curriculum Adoption

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PPS is using OER for K-5 Growth and Development and Substance Use Prevention materials.

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This supports our K-12 Comprehensive Health Adoption.

Supporting Specific Needs 

• Supplementing the curriculum when needed
• Addressing classroom specific issues
• Used across teams in schools (e.g. counselors and teachers)

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Educator Training 

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Educators can take content-specific training for various health topics.

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Trainings include guidance around trauma-informed teaching, best practices, and how to answer student questions

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Training mediums include teacher guides and asynchronous webinars

Questions

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