Two years ago, Arkansas passed a law requiring 6-12 grade schools to provide an hour of instruction on adoption for all students each year. The object of the law was to increase adoption awareness, promote appreciation of adoption and its benefits for society, to dispel misunderstandings about adoption, and to provide information for kids who might find themselves considering adoption in the future.
Failure
Most schools have not yet put the law into action. The reasons for the failure are simple. The Department of Education was supposed to provide adoption awareness instructional materials for the schools to use. They posted a couple of lessons online, but negative reactions to those lessons caused the Department to pull the lessons off the website.
A new set of instructional materials was developed and posted at the beginning of the following school year, according to government sources, but schools were not able to access the materials for unknown reasons. The Department of Education claimed they were available and schools claimed that they were not, but there may have been technical problems or other factors involved.
Schools also were required to provide written materials for parents and opportunities to opt out of the adoption awareness lessons. These steps had to be taken by the schools without support from the DOE. It was up to the schools to figure out how to fit the hour of instruction into their overall curricula, too. News reports say that different schools chose to include the information in science and health classes, to make it part of counseling, or to plan special assemblies on the subject. These additional requirements may also have slowed down the process of bringing the lessons into the classrooms.
Try, try again
The materials are now available online. They include videos and worksheets as well as supporting activities. Arkansas schools are expected to implement the new program at the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year.
There are many widespread myths about adoption, and many people continue to believe inaccurate ideas about adoption. Adoption awareness instruction in schools could help to dispel some of these false beliefs.
Legislators also hope that students who find themselves expecting will be more aware of the possibility of adoption for their babies. The lessons include the following topics:
- societal benefits of adoption
- available types of adoption
- foster care versus private adoption
- related resources and agencies providing assistance for those adopting and for pregnant parents enrolled in public schools
- child and human development