Common sense prevails in New Jersey as school districts allowed to drop trans student policy

Score another win for parental rights and common sense.

Three school districts in New Jersey were given the green light to drop a controversial transgender student policy after years of legal wrangling.

On Monday state appellate court issued the ruling allowing Monmouth County districts Middletown, Manalapan-Englishtown and Marlboro to remove from their books the state’s guidelines on how parents are notified if their child decides to transition.

The decision was welcomed by members of the Middletown school board. On Thursday night, they voted 7 to 1 to toss controversial policy 5756 in the dustbin — and simply deal with trans students and parental notification on a case-by-case basis. (Manalapan votes on Tuesday with plans to follow Middletown, while Marlboro, which has newly elected members, voted this week to keep it).

“This is an overdue victory for parental rights and against government overreach,” Middletown Board of Education Vice President Jacqueline Tobacco told The Post. “It’s been a long drawn out waste of everyone’s time.”

Attorney Bruce Padula, who represents both Middletown and Manalapan-Englishtown told The Post he “considers it a victory that [districts] are now put in the same position as every other school district in the state, that they can make the same policy decisions that they feel are best for their community.”

To recap, this convoluted and colossal waste of time: In 2019, Middletown adopted policy 5756 because they were told by Strauss Esmay, a third party vendor tasked with interpreting policies for schools, that it was mandatory.

But as COVID-19 shutdowns ignited a powerful parental rights movement that upended school boards across the country, new administrations began to take stock of their priorities. That included approaches to trans students — a suddenly growing population.

In the spring of 2023, Middletown along with Manalapan-Englishtown and Marlboro all crafted similar amended policies in regard to transgender students. In the case of Middletown, parents would be told if their children were “socially transitioning” and formally wanted to change their gender identity, pronouns or name, use different bathrooms, or change the gender of teams they play on.

It made sense. After all, parents shouldn’t be shut out of major decisions in their children’s lives. Kids cannot even take an aspirin in school without permission from home.

But the state thought differently. Within 48 hours of passing the policies, State Attorney General Matthew Platkin filed lawsuits saying, said they were tantamount to outing kids and increased the risk of suicide. The state asked a judge to issue an injunction, which was granted.

The policy adopted by Middletown, where Governor Phil Murphy lives, was “student led” and compassionate, involving administrators discussing with the pupils about approaches to their parents before they were made. They simply wanted the parents to be aware and in the loop, especially with such a vulnerable population. 

The state and the districts, which have 18,000 students between them, came to loggerheads in court.

Caterina Skalaski, a Middletown mother of three, told me at the time: “I do not, will not ever co-parent with the government. If [Gov. Phil] Murphy wants to co-parent then he should pay up and split some bills for my kids. He wasn’t present in the delivery room when they were born.”

But there was a major wrinkle. During an initial hearing in a suit against a fourth district, Deputy AG James Michael told Judge Stuart Minkowitz that policy 5756 was not, in fact, mandatory. It was merely a guideline.

At the time, Tobacco called it a “bombshell.”

When that was revealed, over 30 school districts across the Garden State simply began to drop the controversial guidelines, without penalty.

However, Middletown, Marlboro and Manalapan-Englishtown were kept in purgatory, still bound by the injunction, which essentially sanctioned secrets between students and schools.

“If we had known it was non-mandatory we never would have amended it,” Tobacco said. “We were held hostage for 18 months being mandated to keep the policy in place while over 30 districts in the state were simply repealing it,”

A lot has shifted culturally in two years – in regard to transgender minors. Countries like England and Norway pumped the brakes on giving puberty blockers to youths with gender dysphoria. And President Trump has signed an executive order to halt medical intervention for gender transitions in anyone under 19.

The changes were evident in Middletown. When they voted on their amended policy in 2023, the meeting was filled with over 300 people, including trans activists — some of whom stood outside screaming and banging on the windows to prevent it from passing.

Last night as the board voted successfully to drop policy 5756 the room was mostly empty, save for a few expressing support for the move, according to Tobacco.

Sense has started to return.

And while this decision didn’t allow the districts to enact the policies that spurred the legal battles, Tobacco was happy with the outcome.

“We abolished it and we will continue to take care of students the way we do with every other situation,” she said, adding “we always just cared about the kids.”