Credit: CBS News

If you’d asked Tanya Turner eight years ago what she’d be doing over the long term, she’d have said she didn’t think she’d still be teaching sex education to young people in eastern Kentucky.

In 2011, she thought it would be a one-time thing during the annual summer gathering of the Stay Together Appalachian Youth Project, an initiative that seeks to involve local youth in building Appalachian communities they’d want to continue to live in.

But as word got around that Turner’s “Sexy Sex Ed” workshop created a fun, educational, and nonjudgmental space in which young people could get real answers—and a sense of agency lacking in other aspects of their lives—the gigs started rolling in.

“When somebody calls you and says they have a big group of kids that need sex ed, and they don’t know where else to go, it’s very difficult to turn people down,” Turner said. “It’s taken on a life of its own at this point.”

Requirements for sex education vary broadly across the country. Only 24 states mandate […]