Controversial Sex Ed Standards Explained By Lacey Schools

LACEY, NJ — The Lacey Township Board of Education gave a presentation about the recent controversial comprehensive health and physical education curriculum.

William Zylinski, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, gave the presentation after meeting with the district's health teachers, calling himself their "mouthpiece."

Zylinski said that New Jersey schools are given freedom in deciding what goes into their curriculum, as opposed to states such as Florida or Texas, who mandate textbooks, he said.

He emphasized that "as much as people would like it," the state of New Jersey does not tell school districts what to do.

"They don't tell us what books to use, they don't tell us what online resources," Zylinski said.

Zylinksi said that the NJ Department of Education sent out a memo clarifying the standards, which he said was helpful. The memo said that the DOE does not endorse any instructional materials nor does it mandate anything. Instead, curriculum is up to the school's discretion, and should be "developed and selected through meaningful and ongoing consultation with the school community, including parents," the DOE said.

"We are free to deliver those standards as we see fit," Zylinski said. "We've done that for a long time."

Zylinski went into detail about "interesting standards" mentioned in the DOE memo, which are some of those that parents took most issue with. The first was what students should know by the end of second grade. This standard discusses gender roles and stereotypes.

This, Zylinski said, is teaching kids that boys can do art and girls can do math - tackling those sorts of stereotypes.

"People like to blow this up in different ways, but this is really what it means," Zylinski said.

Students are also taught healthy relationships and self-worth, and developing and showing empathy, he said.

"That's what the standard means," Zylinski said. "The state said it. Our health teachers said it."

He also highlighted the standards for what students should know by the end of fifth grade, which covers puberty and sexual manners. One thing many took issue with was the naming of masturbation in the standard. However, this is in parentheses in the standard, meaning it is not a required concept, Zylinski said.

He emphasized that these puberty discussions will not be taught until grades five and six, which was universally agreed to by the health teachers.

Zylinski said that according to the DOE, the best time to teach students about puberty is before its onset.

Code already exists for parents to opt their students out of sex education, Zylinski said.

Zylinski said that when the curriculum is developed, parents will still have the opportunity to opt out of sex education.

He highlighted the next steps for developing and implementing the new curriculum. The Ocean County Curriculum Consortium, which represents all school districts, is currently developing a model county curriculum based on these standards, Zylinski said.

Once this is complete, Lacey will review it and use it to help develop its own curriculum. "Some districts may adopt it verbatim. We never do that here," Zylinski said.

Throughout the spring and summer, Lacey educators and administrators will gather to form the local curriculum.

In August or September, the curriculum will be approved by the Board of Education.