The intense debate over parental rights and transgender students drove efforts to scrap New Jersey’s controversial education Policy 5756 at three Monmouth County school boards Wednesday night. The policy bars schools from outing transgender students to their families, in most cases.
In Holmdel, speakers argued for hours over the consequences of ditching Policy 5756.
“It is considering outing the children to their parents. It’s going to devastate them. It will be very harmful to the kids,” one mom argued, while another countered, “We want all kids to feel safe and accepted, but not at the expense of taking away parental rights.”
Terence Wall, vice president of the Holmdel school board, said, “This is not about LGBTQ. This is about severing a beautiful relationship from incredible children and their loving parents, period. And the sooner this fraudulent policy is rescinded the better.”
Board member Kimberly Tuccillo said, “I don’t think that it’s something that should be rushed at all because … I just don’t feel that anything about this is black or white.” The board has scheduled a vote on the issue for next week.
More than 500 New Jersey school boards adopted Policy 5756, believing it was mandatory, on the advice of a private consulting firm in 2019. During recent court arguments over student transgender policies, a deputy attorney general admitted adoption of the policy is voluntary.
Bruce Padula, whose firm represents three districts seeking to alter or repeal Policy 5756, says, “Obviously we all agree that we have to comply with the law against discrimination. But New Jersey is a home-rule state and these boards of education are elected officials, they’re elected by their community. And I think we’ve kind of lost sight of that a little bit.”
Votes taken Wednesday night included in Colts Neck, where the school board voted to rescind Policy 5756. In a preliminary vote, Howell’s board of education moved to repeal the policy, with a final vote slated for next month. Resident Janis Iwanyk said, “I have already received text messages this morning from parents who are frightened for their children.”
LGBTQ advocates expressed deep concern. “It seems as if it’s spreading like wildfire and honestly, it’s deeply disturbing and, very concerning that we are kind of losing focus of who is at the center of these policies, which are the youth,” said Brielle Winslow-Majette of Garden State Equality.
