5th grade, 1968, suburb.
They separated the boys and girls classes, thankfully, cause of the boys immaturity.
They didn’t give us total info.
Hm. I vaguely recall sex ed classes in high school (mid-90’s), but I may have also experienced what laurelann described.
I really can’t remember. I’m certain that if and when I had them, I was either daydreaming, reading or sleeping through them.
Sex Ed? Not likely… although I think I saw a classroom movie that had somewhat a sex ed feel and a “talk” in physical education in (I think) 8th grade in 1971. If one classroom session counts as sex ed, then that was it.
8th grade was a very good year for me sex ed-wise… but none of it had anything to do with school.
Oops!
Suburban public school…
1.) 7th grade, early 1990s.
2.) Rural school, very small (28 kids in my graduating class).
3.) Public school.
My health teacher was (probably still is) a moron. The first day of our sex ed unit, we walked into class to “Let me tell you 'bout the birds and the bees, and the flowers and the trees …” playing in the background. He also couldn’t say “contraception.” It always came out as “contraption.” As in “be sure to use contraptions.” And to think we learned about sex from him. shudders Shocking, really, that we didn’t all end up teenage parents with multiple venereal diseases.
Grade: 6th
Year: 1981
Setting: Small rural-oriented community outside of Boise at the time that has since burgeoned into a suburban environment.
Type of school: Public
In 6th grade we were separated by boys and girls. They mostly talked about the human reproductive system and what to expect as we entered puberty. In 9th grade we had a two-week session on sex ed, which covered everything, including intercourse, STDs, contraception, masturbation, porn and its influence on individuals and society, etc.
1979 - 5th grade, I asked my mom. She gave me a dollar and took me to Planned Parenthood. I gave the nice lady the dollar and then I watched a very rudimentary cartoon about flowers, animals and people making babies. (Ummm no cross-species breeding going on.) Nice lady answered my extra questions about menstruation etc. She gave me her card and said to call if I needed any other help “down the road” when I had a boyfriend. (I remember thinking that was the silliest thing I’d ever heard. I just saw the movie. What else did I need to know?)
Mom sat in the parking lot the entire time. I walked out, got in the car and we drove home. We never spoke about it, not then, not later.
- 5th Grade, 1988.
- Suburban elementary school
- Public school
For 5th grade, they separated the boys and the girls, and they only taught us the female puberty bit. My mom had already explained most of it to me, so it was kinda boring.
In 6th grade, they kept the class together and explained things in more detail. That was interesting.
It’s kind of scary – I had sex ed in some form or other (including biology and mitosis and all) seven times: 5th, 6th (special sex ed unit), 7th (science class), 9th (biology class), 10th (special “Safer Choices” program, where they taught us how to put condoms on bananas, say no, etc.), 11th (physiology) and freshman year of college (biology again).
I think I’m educated, already! 
I’m kind of apalled at how cowardly some parents are about talking about sex to their kids. Frankly, if I were a parent, I wouldn’t trust that they got the full message by just handing off the responsibility to someone else. Not that I think public schools can’t give good sex ed; the schools I went to did a very good job.
5th grade: Had a sex ed video, with questions. Ironically, I already knew much of this- I was a curious kid, both my parents were in the medical field and willing to answer any questions. Oh yeah, and I found the book “HOW TO GET PREGNANT” in the garage which talked about fertility and hormones and all that jazz. So I was pretty well-informed, though even if I wasn’t, I thought that the school did a pretty thorough job. The video talked about puberty and reproduction, contraceptives, and also sexually transmitted diseases.
6th grade: Had another video and more in-depth discussion. We also talked about issues like abortion.
In 8th grade, I had a science teacher who went extremely in-depth about contraceptives. These were public schools in California, 1990’s
I graduated from a rural high school in 1997 and did not have one single sex ed. class the entire time I was in school, grade school included. My high school offered Home Economics as an elective and I think they may have covered sex ed. but my thought was “pshaw, just because I am a girl doesn’t mean I have to take Home Ec., I am gonna take shop.” I was lucky enough to have parents willing to talk with me from a very young age and they also provided me with good reading materials. I was the one that all the girls came to with questions and I was (luckily) able to provide them with correct answers.
“No Sally, popping your cherry does not mean that you have a little sac of blood that is going to bust when you have sex. No, pulling out is not a good method of birth control. No, you can’t have a baby in your throat. So…do you have names picked out for you kids? Oh, you’re not pregnant…Give it time.” 
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5th grade, 1979-1980.
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Urban (Springfield, IL. Population at the time: 95,000ish).
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Public.
The boys were separated from the girls and we were given something of a puberty preparedness class. We were given a brief rundown on the use of deodorant and saw diagrams of both sexes’ plumbing.
The more heavy-duty stuff took place in sixth grade.
Puberty ed 6th grade, 1986.
Sex ed 7th grade, 1987.
Not long afterward I got into my own line of research…
4th grade, 1968. We had a subject called “Health” with its own textbook, separate from Science. Each unit was a “system”, and we did The Reproductive System with no more teacher-squeamishness than when we covered excretory functions in The Digestive System or The Urinary System. Uterus and fallopian tubes. Vulva, vagina, dunno if clitoris was mentioned. Diagrams, not photos, no details. Penis and testicles and prostate. Spermatozoa and ova, penis goes in vagina, swimming up the tubes, fertilization, implantation.
7th grade, 1971. Junior high biology, “the talk”. Our class didn’t divide up girls/boys but that was unusual: we didn’t because we were a small class. Teacher describes in more detail erection and lubrication and orgasm in addition to covering the parts and going into much more depth on follicle stimulating hormone and leutinizing hormone and estrogen and progesterone, on cowper’s gland and pH. Birth control devices, the IUD, the pill, condoms, the diaphragm. Sterilization.
Valdosta, Georgia.
- Sex Ed began in 5th grade (1986) and continued into high school
- Majority white middle class suburb
- Public
5th grade, 1971. Public school, predominantly white, suburbian California.
Then they taught us again in 6th grade.
In neither session did they point out that sex was fun. They made it seem kind of utilitarian and pointless.
Bastards.
It was never offered, although I probably would have CLEP’d out.
- 8, 1984
- Rural Alberta, 3000 people in town
- Public school
We girls had the period film in grade 5.
Fifth grade (1986); suburban Virginia; public school.
Mind, we didn’t actually have a good sex ed class until high school biology. From fifth through eighth grade, we went through the same routine four times running, with boys and girls separated, EXACTLY the same films every year about getting your period and where babies come from, and an enforced question-and-answer session every day where you had to write your questions down anonymously on slips of paper. This would have been OK, except for the fact that the teachers weren’t allowed to answer any questions that were actually interesting (there was a blanket ban on questions about birth control, abortion, homosexuality, and masturbation, and they generally refused to answer anything along the lines of “What does having sex feel like?” or “Does it hurt?”)
Ninth grade, on the other hand, was awesome – we were not only allowed but encouraged to discuss controversial topics, and that was when we got most of the nuts-and-bolts information about STDs and contraception.
Public school in a rural area in the 80s/early 90s. None. I think they mentioned a little about it in high school health class, but nothing actually useful.
Fifth grade (mid 90’s). Mid-upper class Boston suburb, public school.