In their swift rubber-stamping of changes to math and health curriculum standards Monday, the Board of Education Standards sided with Education Secretary Joe Graves and kept the vainglorious, anti-feminist, projective fundagelical frenzy over human trafficking out of the health standards:
As for the proposed health education standards, the board decided against adding human trafficking and care giving. Board member Kamp Meyer of Rapid City wanted them inserted, but Graves and several other board members spoke against doing that.
Graves said each school district decides how to adopt the standards into the local curriculum. Board member Greg Von Wald of Rapid City said there is too much variety among communities and schools only have so much time. “Something has to fall out when you put something else in,” Von Wald said [Bob Mercer, “South Dakota Says Goodbye to Common Core Math,” KELO-TV, updated 2026.05.05].
Right-wing hack and board president Steven Perkins still wants the state to push teachers to join the show-Christian crusade against sex trafficking:
Board president Perkins replied that the board’s work group on human trafficking, of which he’s a member, plans to recommend a letter be sent to school districts and plans to recommend that teachers be better trained in their responsibilities as mandatory reporters. He said that board’s human-trafficking initiative seems incongruent to not including human trafficking in the board’s standards. “It seems to me to be, why are you sending the letter?” Perkins said.
Perkins said he would still vote to adopt the health standards if human trafficking and care giving weren’t added. “I do have grave concerns that as we look at problems today, we have kind of whitewashed over them,” Perkins said. He said including human trafficking and care giving is like requiring that certain math and social studies be taught. “I think we’re missing the opportunity in this process,” Perkins added [Mercer, 2026.05.05].
But we all know from the Epstein files that crusaders like Perkins don’t really care about stopping powerful people from preying on children, so let’s be glad the Board of Education Standards has kept this pompous hypocrisy out of our already cluttered curriculum standards.