The State of New Jersey School Boards of Education voted to PASS an amendment to Chapter 7 “Managing for Equality and Equity in Education”, with controversial updates directed by Governor Murphy (see video at the end of article). The original purpose of the chapter is to ensure that all students, regardless of race, creed, color, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc. are provided equal access to educational programs and services by all district’s board of education. You can read more about it in our last article HERE.
The controversial updates include (but are not limited to):
- Removing equality and replacing with equity, and redefining equity to mean equality. Equity now means that “students have the opportunity to master the goals of the curriculum in an educational environment that is fair, just, and impartial to all individuals.” New Jersey has a completely different definition of equity from the rest of America who understands equity as “denotes fairness and justice in process and in results.”
- Sex Ed classes will no longer be split up by biological sex, but rather gender identity. This means that biological boys of any age, can now be in lessons on sensitive topics, in the presence of biological girls. Keep in mind that most districts will not tell you that your child has a new gender identity, therefore, your child will get sexual instruction based on his/her preference without a parent’s consent or knowledge.
- Remove gender-specific language from the school curriculum, to be inclusive of all protected classes and categories, and ensure all classes and programs offered by the school district are represented. Teaching sex ed classes without gender-specific language will be something your individual district will have to figure out.
- There will be sanctions to the districts that do not implement the new comprehensive equity plan within 180 days of the plan’s approval date.
The meeting heated up when VP Andrew Mulvihill went against Murphy Ideology and brought up the fact that eliminating a female only safe space for women, is actually discriminatory. The revised chapter sacrifices the comfort of biological girls in favor of biologicals boys who identify as girls. He went on to explain that the wording of Chapter 7 allows local districts to decide how they interpret the language and allows for local control. Each district can decide to split up the sex ed classes by gender identity OR choose to NOT separate the children at all. But those are the only two options. Another board member argued that local districts are actually not in control. No one could agree on the interpretation of the document they voted on. One thing is clear, the state regulations are not clear but are discrimatory, which makes the schools at risk of losing funding and at risk of lawsuits no matter which decisions they make.
The same confusion occurred when they had a discussion on “Equity vs Equality.” Questions were asked to obtain clarity on the redefinition of equity but no other board member could explain how this made any sense.
At one point there was a motion to vote on the amendment to Chapter 7, then without warning, the board went into executive session in the middle of a vote. This is a procedural flaw on the president’s part. One thing is clear from watching the entire video… they need to figure out how to mute/unmute themselves, learn to follow correct board meeting procedures and understand their own written policies before they put them up to a vote.
Even though no consensus could be met on the interpretation the document they created, they passed it anyway in a close vote. It seemed that this decision was based on the fear of displeasing the Murphy Administration and concern for being sued by the AG, rather than what is best for our kids.
To see video CLICK HERE to see the discussion and HERE for the final vote.
Just a note that NJDOE’s commissioner, Angelica Allen-McMillan, loves to tell personal stories that have nothing to do with state policy. That’s one of the reasons this topic went non-stop for 2.5 hours and nothing was resolved. It was amazing to hear her compare parents to her own picky children that won’t eat their broccoli. By the very end of the video, you can hear the disdain some of the other state BOE had for the people in the audience that came to fight for their kids. The back and forth with the audience of parents was completely disrespectful, especially when you consider parents didn’t even get a chance to voice their opinion at the meeting on this topic.
They will pass controversial policy and YOU MUST LOVE IT!
-MURPHY’s DECREE!
E-mail or call the State BOE and tell them that they need to involve all stakeholders in their decision, not just GOVERNOR MURPHY.
stateboardoffice@doe.nj.gov
1-609-376-9071
