Poll: Garden State Democrats Support Schools Keeping Parents Informed

A new poll has revealed parents in a deep-blue state actually support schools notifying parents of students’ gender transition efforts. According to a Monmouth University survey, 77% of adults (including 81% of parents of minors) in New Jersey want schools to require teachers to inform parents if students identify as a gender other than their biological sexes, and 59% of adults said teachers should inform parents even if there’s no requirement. Among Republicans, 92% support the mandate, as do a majority (61%) of Democrats.

Meg Kilgannon, Family Research Council’s senior fellow for Education Studies, told The Washington Stand, “It would be easy to forget that the same night [now-Virginia Governor Glenn] Youngkin (R) squeaked by [Terry] McAuliffe, N.J.’s gubernatorial race was too close to call. That lack of a mandate doesn’t stop Democratic gender radicals from ruling with an iron fist, voters and polls be damned.”

The poll results come in the wake of a New Jersey state judge blocking the Manalapan-Englishtown, Marlboro, and Middletown school districts from enforcing a policy requiring teachers to inform parents of students’ gender identity choices. The three school districts instituted the policy in June, after local parents overwhelmingly insisted on greater transparency from schools. New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin sued the school districts, arguing that the policy violates state law on discrimination and “shirks the [school] District’s obligation to create a safe and supportive learning environment for all.” New Jersey Superior Court judge David Bauman agreed, ruling that the policies “will have a disparate impact on transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary youth.”

Platkin, an abortion advocate appointed to office by ardently pro-abortion Governor Phil Murphy (D), claimed, “[I]t is likely that these new policies violate the rights of our most vulnerable residents by discriminating against them on the basis of gender identity or expression.”

Marlboro Board of Education attorney Marc Zitomer said that “the school district is now severely constrained in its ability to notify parents about important issues involving their minor children, which is concerning on many levels.” He also confirmed that the school board is seeking to appeal the decision. Bruce W. Padula, attorney for Manalapan-Englishtown and Middletown Boards of Education, noted that the ruling does not outright ban teachers from informing parents of their students’ gender identity choices. He said, “Significantly, however, the Court decided to maintain the status quo and did not rule on the merits of the policy. Simply, it is not discrimination to tell parents if their child decides to change the gender in their student records. The law supports our position.”

Judge Bauman further said that he would like to see the state and the school boards agree on a policy to address the subject, stressing the policy must take into consideration “the well-settled right of parental oversight over the care and upbringing of their children.”

Kilgannon commented:

“Gender ideology is such a lie about the human person that it must be brutally enforced to maintain its hold over people. The attempt by these school boards to simply notify parents represents a great effort of sustained determination that allowed the vote to happen in the first place: concerns led to conversations which led to campaigns which were run and won. Then policies were drafted and scheduled for votes and finally school boards spoke to defend children by including parents. Certainly most parents and the general public know that separating parents from children is a grave injustice.”

She continued:

“There is no other medical intervention treated this way by schools. Children cannot be given medications without parental consent. But social transition, a major medical mental health intervention, is not only allowed or encouraged by the school, the very fact of it is kept from parents by law if the child thinks mom and dad won’t go along. Such an atrocity must be enforced without compromise and the radicals in Trenton will do just that.”

A recent report from Parents Defending Education found that nearly 1,100 school districts in the U.S. enforced policies requiring teachers to keep students’ gender transition efforts and gender identity choices a secret from parents, including over 130 school districts in New Jersey. Kilgannon also stated, “Parents love their children and want what is best for them. No school policy should undermine that relationship. … Children need their parents, not new names and pronouns.”

Nearly half of respondents to the Monmouth University poll also said schools are focusing too much on teaching gender ideology, with only a paltry 16% saying schools should teach more on the subject.