Currently, only three states in the country explicitly include special ed students in their sex-ed requirements. Six other states provide optional resources adapted for more accessible sex-ed curriculums. Thirty-six states fail to mention students with special needs at all, meaning the issue is left up to the individual school districts, which, more often than not, punt the ball until parents demand it or a crisis arises, e.g., two students are found in a bathroom stall or a nonverbal girl is discovered to be pregnant. Then frantic measures are hastily put in place. Inevitably, the teachers are ill-prepared, the message is muddled, and the impact is unclear, especially when these measures come far too late for many students.

Read more in the New York Times.