THE NORTHAMPTON HIGH SCHOOL student union surveyed students last year, asking them what they thought were the school’s biggest problems.

“We got a lot of people saying sex ed,” said 16-year-old Brynt Goggins in a story by the Daily Hampshire Gazette that suggested students across Hampshire County are dissatisfied with the way sex education is taught in high schools. Students complained that not enough emphasis was placed on the issue of consent. Others said there was not enough information for LGBTQ students.

Massachusetts is one of 26 states that don’t mandate that local schools teach sex education. If schools do teach sex education, the state provides guidelines that teachers can follow, but those guidelines were written 20 years ago, in 1999. Revised guidelines are due out later this year.