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The Health Youth Act, H88, which will now require all school districts to offer comprehensive sex education, passed the Senate Mental Health and Youth Services Committee.

Supporters of the bill said they were “disappointed” with the new version Wednesday.

In prior incarnations, the measure would have provided for two tracks of sex education. One would have been the same abstinence-until-marriage approach taught in most public schools now. The other would have been a comprehensive track.

The new version of the bill creates only one track. It requires all schools to offer comprehensive sex education but allows parents to opt out of the “advanced” section of the curriculum.

Click here for the bill explanation.

“It will allow schools to teach what I think needs to be taught,” said Rep. Susan Fisher, the bill’s primary sponsor. “However, it will not give parents the full choice, the full spectrum of choices that we had wanted to offer them.”

Fisher said she was happy that a requirement the school system hold a public hearing before offering comprehensive sex education has been eliminated.

Click here to listen to Fisher outline more of her thoughts.

The measure is a House bill and must return to the House for a concurrence vote. Fisher said she was uncertain if she would ask for concurrence or send the thing to a conference committee.

Fisher noted that she had not been consulted in drafting this latest version of the bill. I asked Committee Chairman Malcolm Graham who pieced the thing together. He said that he and Sen. Rand and a few other senators interested in the bill did the rewrite.

“You never get 100 percent of what you want,” Graham said when asked about the opponent’s disappointment.

Click here to listen to more of his thoughts.

Republican Sens. Jim Jacumin and James Forrester, who had objected to earlier versions of the bill, favored this draft.