More NJ schools adopting Murphy’s trans policy/notification ban

🏳‍🌈 Parental rights advocates won changes to controversial trans policies in school

🏳‍🌈 New school board majorities are reversing those changes

🏳‍🌈 LGBTQ+ advocates are urging adoption of new policies

Parental rights advocates are facing the loss of hard-won victories over transgender policies in a number of New Jersey school districts.

Changes in the make-up of school boards could lead to votes that reinstate the controversial Policy 5756 which requires schools to accept a student's chosen gender identity and does not require parents be told of any change.

The policy drove huge public turnout and protests at school board meetings around the state and led to more conservative majorities on school boards following local elections.

However, some of those conservative majorities have been replaced with more progressive members in subsequent elections.

LGBTQ+ advocates urge changes

The ACLU of New Jersey and Garden State Equality is targeting more than a dozen school districts that had rejected guidance from Gov. Phil Murphy's administration regarding transgender students.

In letters sent to 16 districts last week, school officials are urged to "readopt state Policy 5756 to safeguard the wellbeing of LGBTQ+ youth and to meet their responsibilities to transgender students under federal and state law."

Garden State Equality warns districts that do not adopt the state's guidance "open their districts to legal liability, and, most alarmingly, signal to LGBTQ+ students and families that their schools may not be a safe and welcoming environment."

The districts being targeted to urge repeal of current parental rights policies are:

Colts Neck
Freehold
Franklin Lakes
Holmdel
Howell
Lacey
Lafayette
Millstone
Old Bridge
Ramapo Indian Hills
Roxbury
Sparta
Sussex-Wantage
Union Township (Hunterdon County)
Vineland
Washington Township

Repeals have already begun

In Bergen County, the Town of Westwood rejected Gov. Murphy's transgender policies and implemented a requirement that parents be notified if a student changed gender identity in school. A conservative majority on the school board also approved restrictions on teachers expressing 'opinion' in their lesson plans.

That conservative majority on the school board is now gone, replaced by more progressive members.

Last week, that progressive majority voted to repeal the current policies and go back to the previous rules. New President Jay Garcia said the board's attorney recommended the district adopt Murphy's Policy 5756.

That drew an angry response from members of the public who were in attendance at the school board meeting as well as objections from the remaining conservative school board members.

In addition to the re-adoption of 5756, the board also lifted restrictions on what opinions teachers can express in the classroom and approved a strict new policy that prohibits audio or video recording in the classroom.

A final vote on all three policies is expected next month.

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