Family Life Education (FLE) is composed of 74 lessons, for a total of 83 hours of instruction, and is taught in Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) from kindergarten through 12th grade to all students except those who have been opted out by their parents. Parents may opt their children out of any or all FLE lessons and opt out forms may be found on the FCPS website at fcps.edu/node/31710. Parents can read FLE lessons in their Schoology account and anyone may download all FLE lesson plans (minus videos and online materials) which are available at the library in Fairfax City.
In addition to lessons which discuss contraception, abortion, sexually transmitted infections, cohabitation, consent, rape, incest, anal sex, pornography, gay, lesbian, bisexuality, and gender identity, the FLE curriculum also includes lessons on preventing bullying, hazards of drug and alcohol abuse, appropriate use of social media, and preventing sex trafficking.
The FLE program claims to discourage students from having sex before marriage and, in fact, a number of FLE lessons do discourage premarital sex. However, other lessons directly or indirectly encourage sexual activity, downplay or overlook consequences; or exclude information students have a right and a need to know.
In addition to the fact that some FLE lessons contradict Christian, Jewish, and Islamic religious beliefs about sexuality, the lessons pose a risk to the physical and emotional health of students, promote harmful sexual practices and attitudes, and fail to connect sexuality with love, marriage, and family formation.