Toms River School Board Rejects State Policy On LGBTQ Inclusion

TOMS RIVER, NJ — The Toms River Regional Board of Education refused to approve a state-mandated comprehensive health and physical education policy on Wednesday over concerns about diversity and inclusion requirements.

The "Comprehensive Health and Physical Education" policy, which was on the agenda Wednesday for a second reading, includes requirements for inclusion of the historic and economic contributions of LGBTQ people and African Americans, as well as sex education requirements. Those requirements were the result of state laws passed in 2019.

Board member Lisa Contessa, who chairs the policy committee, presented the policy to the board for the second reading and vote, then voted no on the policy.

"I voted no because we need a lot more discussion around this," Contessa said after the vote. "I want to make sure that in both the health and PE policies and curriculum there is nothing perverse being forced on our children under the guise of equity and tolerance."

The policy changes, defined in the New Jersey Student Learning Standards, were supposed to be implemented by school districts for September, but the state has postponed those curriculum changes to Fall 2022.

The curriculum, which is updated every five years, includes using medically accurate terms for body parts, sexting, consent and personal boundaries, and cyberbullying, and says the curriculum should be age-appropriate. It is required by state law to stress abstinence. The standards also address gender identity and sexual orientation.

Parents who oppose it say the curriculum goes too far and crosses into sensitive territory that should be left to parents. The policy does include the ability for parents to have their children excluded from the sex education curriculum, and district officials said it would be a very detailed opt-out program.

While the sex education curriculum has drawn a great deal of scrutiny, on Wednesday a parent threatened to file criminal complaints against the board if it even dared to vote on the policy, because of what he alleged were pornographic materials contained in the curriculum.

Warren Crosby of Toms River handed out packets showing material from an art history website that was one of many resources that were provided to the district so teachers can prepare for the curriculum change.

Crosby's packet included three photos — one showing a protest poster with a vagina, one showing a man with his penis hanging out of his zipper and one of two naked women in bed. The photos were buried in a slide show that was four pages into the art history website.

The photos were not published directly on the Toms River Schools' website. The link to the art history website was in a document that was linked on the website but not prominent, even on the curriculum page.

Crosby said he found the photos during "a deep dive" into the curriculum.

He accused the board and the district of using the LGBTQ curriculum to expose children to pornography.

"Are we running a school or a sex-trafficking operation?" Crosby said. "I don't want any more voting on broad LGBTQ agenda items because it's not about LGBTQ people. It's coming under the auspices of LGBTQ and you're exposing small children 10 and 11 years old to sexually explicit content."

Crosby asked the Toms River police officers present if they would arrest board members on charges of endangering the welfare of a child. He later left the meeting and filed a complaint with the Toms River Police Department, police confirmed.

Assistant Superintendent Cara DiMeo said the art history link was part of materials to help teachers prepare to add the inclusion requirements to their instruction.

"It's important to note that these activities or the content you see in our curriculum documents are not materials that are directly delivered to students or children," DiMeo said Wednesday night. "These items are shared under our LGBTQ resources and many of them are recommended by the NJDOE as part of their equity and inclusion resources."

"Curriculum is an evolving process and we will certainly be reevaluating some of the resources that are embedded," DiMeo said, "but some of those resources are intended for the planning process for teachers."

On Thursday afternoon, DiMeo said the administration had been reviewing the links to ensure they meet district standards for what is appropriate. She said she had the curriculum pages disabled on the website while administrators review the materials.

"Our teachers would never put these in front of a child," she said, referring to the photos Crosby shared. She said the list of resources pulls from a number of sources, including regionalized curriculum meetings where districts get together to discuss how to implement various mandates.

Links are included to give teachers a variety of information as a starting point, and the curriculum document includes them because that's what the Department of Education is looking at when it is checking for compliance, DiMeo said. District administrators are looking closely at all of the links provided to ensure they are appropriate.

"When we're talking about an inclusive environment for children, we're talking about making sure they feel they are represented in the curriculum," DiMeo said. It's things such as optional books to read in the classroom that show children of color in a positive light.

"Teachers are very selective about their resources, especially now," she said. "There is no way a teacher would be putting that in front of a child."

Board members Kathy Eagan and Ashley Palmiere, who both sit on the policy committee, also voted no despite the committee bringing the policy to the full board for a vote. Typically when a school board is dissatisfied with a policy, they will table it until they can make adjustments that satisfy their concerns while also complying with the state laws.

Eagan said the policy needed to be looked at further, as did Jennifer Howe, who also voted no on it, and Alex Mizenko, who voted to approve the policy.

"The policies all are mandatory policies," Mizenko said. "I see a way that we on the local level can implement them the way we like."

Contessa said she will vote against the policy no matter what as long as it contains the diversity and inclusion requirements — all of which are mandated by state law.

"I want to be sure there's no hateful racism being disguised as antiracism which divides our children into oppressors and victims," Contessa said. "I reject gender ideology that teaches children there's no such thing as a boy or a girl. I reject quotas based on race or skin color as opposed to the content of the individual's character or the achievements they've accomplished through learning and hard work."

"I believe everyone should feel comfortable and safe and included and never singled out for how they look or what they believe, but by incorporating these kinds of ideologies to the masses and focusing so much attention on the issues that divide it does the exact opposite of what it is intended to do," she said.

"So until I'm comfortable that there's none of this, my vote will always be a no on approving any such policies or curriculum," Contessa said.

Wednesday night was not the first time Contessa objected to the LGBTQ inclusion in the policy. In July, at the board's committee meetings, she objected to it being included with references to culture.

"LGBTQ doesn't have anything to do with culture, it's more preference," she said.

The board's rejection of the policy on second reading — and the state's mandate that one be put in place — means the board will have to revisit the policy and restart the process, which means first and second readings are necessary again, before a vote to approve.

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