Using a curriculum known as "The Fourth R", Dillingham teaches health education to 7-9th graders, even though the state doesn't require it.
CNN recently sent columnist John Sutter to Alaska to write a feature on the epidemic of domestic violence in the state for CNN’s Change the List project. His original article drew wide praise, and brought national attention to Alaska’s troubling rates of domestic and sexual violence. In a follow-up to that piece, Sutter wrote that those numbers could be high in part because Alaska doesn’t require sex education in its classrooms. He mentioned a successful program called “The Fourth R”, which is taught to middle schoolers in Dillingham.
KDLG’s Dave Bendinger has more: