Board member Lisa Contessa’s attempt to rescind Governor Murphy’s policy blocked by school board, including candidate for Toms River Council Michelle Williams.
TOMS RIVER, NJ – Parental rights have been a topic of heated discussion in New Jersey after Governor Phil Murphy announced parents should be kept in the dark when it comes to gender issues regarding their children in public schools. On Tuesday, school board member Lisa Contessa proposed a resolution to suspect that policy.
While many school districts have challenged Governor Murphy’s order, the Toms River School Board refused to overturn existing policy in line with Murphy’s policies.
Contessa was met with silence by the other school board members when she called to rescind Policy 5756 from the school policies and guidelines until it was further reviewed by the board.
“The motion would be to resend policy5756 the transgender policy for revision to the language within the law specifically around the area of parental rights and notification of student status,” Contessa said.
No other school board member would second her motion, including Michelle Williams, a Democrat running for Toms River Municipal Council with former Toms River School Board President Ben Giovine.
Under that policy, “Gender-related identity may be provided to the school district by a parent of a student or by an adult student with evidence including, but not limited to, medical history, care or treatment of the gender-related identity, the consistent and uniform assertion of the gender-related identity, or any other evidence that the gender-related identity is sincerely held as part of the student’s core identity.”
Toms River resident Maria Mitchel said, “I just don’t know why can we respect the rights of transgendered students and also the rights of parents to know that something is happening in school that they deserve to know.
School board Attorney William Burns justified the district’s guidelines saying they were adopted by the board in 2019 and is required by state law under NJ Law Against Discrimination. Burns suggested that because of litigation by the state against other districts, the board should not rescind the policy.