A second member of an Alexandria school advisory committee charged with reviewing the school district’s high school sexual education curriculum has come forward with serious concerns and has called for the end of the class.

“Nothing would make me happier than to see this class go away,” said Marie Steinmetz, a family doctor who serves on the Family Life Advisory Committee. “I don’t think it’s the best thing for the students of the school system.”

Two of the Family Life Advisory Committee’s five members have now registered complaints about the sex education program in Alexandria’s high schools.

Steinmetz joins Kenneth Wolfe, a 10-year committee member, who said language on abortion and homosexuality in curriculum guidelines used by teachers have a liberal bias.

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This language includes the defining of a transsexual as “a person who has had a medical sex change, male to female or female to male” and a transvestite as “a person who dresses in the clothes of the opposite gender for sexual pleasure (may be of any sexual orientation).”

The abortion section of the guidelines includes language from abortion rights organization Planned Parenthood.

The schools did not return calls for comment.

Steinmetz said she thought the guidelines lean left, but that was in line with the political leaning of the city. She said she wanted to get rid of the class because it is ineffective and takes away other learning opportunities.

“As a scientist, show me the evidence that [the class] is doing what its expected to do,” she said, noting that Alexandria’s teen pregnancy rates are among the highest in Virginia.

Steinmetz added that taking the class prevents students from taking other classes, such as band or additional languages. She said sex education should be included in physical education class, and parents should be allowed to opt their children out of individual parts of the class instead of being forced to completely remove their kids.

The latter issue was raised in a series of public hearings in 2004, prompting Steinmetz to join the panel. After the hearings, the school gave parents the opportunities to remove their kids completely from the program.

dfrancis@dcexaminer.com