Curt Flewelling – FISM News
The New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) is implementing new sex education standards it adopted in 2020, prompting concern from parents who say the curriculum goes too far in normalizing progressive ideologies.
The standards mandate that by the completion of eighth grade, students will be able to describe pregnancy testing, the signs of pregnancy, and pregnancy options, including parenting, abortion, and adoption. The New Jersey Student Learning Standards — Comprehensive Health and Physical Education (NJSLS-CHPE) directives also require students to successfully define the terms vaginal, oral, and anal sex.
The acting Commissioner of the NJDOE Angelica Allen-McMillan stressed the need for students to demonstrate a thorough understanding of these concepts in an April memo to school administrators throughout the Garden State. She said, “ensuring that students understand that they have agency over their own bodies is foundational to keeping them (students) safe and protecting themselves from pressure, dating violence, and assault.”
The department’s rationale for the dictates is not comforting parents. A parent of a student in the Berkeley Heights school district who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said,
As our government and newly appointed Supreme Court judge struggle to define ‘what is a woman.’ It gives parents like me little confidence [that] those who write our updated state guidelines on sex ed have any business teaching my children how to safely have anal sex and about abortion.
Amidst the concern, there may be some reason for parents to be hopeful. In her May memo, Allen McMillian said, “Local educational agencies (LEAs) have the discretion to select and adopt curricula aligned to the NJSLS-CHPE without the need for approval by the NJDOE.
The memo goes on to stress the importance of parental input into their child’s education, the importance of LEA’s consultation with educators, families, and other members of the school community in selecting and adopting curricula, and the ability of parents to opt out of instructional activities aligned with these standards.
For children to be excused from sex education classes, parents or guardians must provide school principals with a written notice indicating that the instruction conflicts with their conscience or sincerely held moral or religious beliefs.
These assurances may be in place but some parents fear that their neighbors in the community may be unaware of what is being taught and that they can opt their children out of class when such material is being presented.
The Berkeley Heights mom stated, “All I’m asking for is transparency and accountability, I had to send quite a few emails and figure out who is in charge and teaching what to get to this point, it’s a lot of work for most parents.”
Local schools may be between a rock and a hard place. Attempting to remain sympathetic and deferential to parents while maintaining compliance with NJDOE mandates will be challenging as the latter could result in the loss of funding or disciplinary action.