In wake of NJ elections, expect more fights over revealing trans kids’ identities

Battles are still raging in several New Jersey schools over policies that would disclose transgender students’ identities to their parents. And after this month’s school board elections, leaders of one of the state’s largest “parents’ rights” groups say they’ve got the momentum on their side.

But a progressive organization formed last year to combat what it calls “MAGA extremists” on matters of school policy — including protecting trans kids from being outed to their families — says gains by parents’ rights candidates are far more modest than many political observers expected.

Leaders of both groups agree on two things:

• More New Jersey school districts will likely craft new rules about how to treat transgender students — replacing versions based on state guidance that say trans kids’ identities should be respected, and should only be revealed to families under limited circumstances.
• New Jersey won’t soon go back to the days when Board of Education elections were sleepy affairs, divorced from culture wars and national politics.

“It’s a win for us if [parents’ rights candidates] won and it’s a win for us if they lost – because they’re angry now and ready to take it to the next level,” said Nikki Stouffer, executive director of the NJ Project, part of a conservative movement that argues too many state regulations and local school board policies shut parents out of their children’s lives.

NJ Project grew out of a Facebook group where parents’ railed against remote learning and student mask mandates during the pandemic, and against sex education guidelines members said exposed young children to too much explicit information.

More than 500 districts first adopted policies based on model language from a consulting group in 2019, to conform to the state guidance. The rules are commonly called “5756” policies, for the number most often assigned to them by school boards. But several revoked those policies this year, objecting to language that said schools didn’t have any obligation to tell parents about kids’ gender and sexual identities.

The state attorney general’s office is also suing several districts it says have put policies into place that specifically call for schools to notify families about children’s identities. The districts’ leaders say those rules are meant to inform parents about any issue that might affect a child’s well-being — giving drug use and bullying as other examples of issues that might prompt parental notification.

Stouffer expects those battles to heat up. She cited wins for NJ Project-favored candidates in dozens of local school board races, including Colts Neck, one of the districts that repealed its existing trans-inclusion policy in September, and Old Bridge, where school officials are considering doing the same.

New Jersey school elections are nonpartisan, and there’s no authoritative statewide breakdown of parents’ rights or progressive school board candidates. But Stouffer said it appears between 60% and 70% of the more than 450 candidates NJ Project described on its website as “pro-parent, pro-child” won their races.

Darcy Draeger, executive director of Districts for Democracy, formed last year to oppose the conservative movement in schools, would put a footnote on those numbers.

“It was a much better night than I’d feared,’’ Draeger said.

Republican candidates for the state Legislature blanketed the state with ads focusing on parents’ rights and gender issues. And ahead of the election, Draeger worried turnout by parents’ rights supporters could flip legislative races for Republicans. But Democrats ultimately held onto their legislative majorities, picking up six seats in the state Assembly.

Draeger said many of the NJ Project-backed candidates who won did so in uncontested races, which aren’t uncommon in New Jersey school elections.

Her group had its own list of 327 preferred candidates, specifically in contested races. Of those, 64% won, she said.

“And I think that that’s pretty good given how much focus was on the other side of the ledger,” she said.

Voters favored a slate that campaigned on parents’ rights in Hanover, one of the districts already fighting a state lawsuit for a policy that could out trans kids to parents. An accounting by NorthJersey.com says Election day left Ramapo-Indian Hills Regional School District’s board with a 5-4 majority of parents’ rights movement members.

In Sparta, a town in heavily red Sussex County, a slate of candidates championing parents’ took the majority last year and revoked their version of “5756,” the policy based on the state’s guidance. But in this year’s election, members of that slate — two incumbents and one running mate — lost all three open seats, and control of the board. One of the winners, recent Sparta High School graduate Chad Wood, told NJ.com he’s troubled Sparta dropped a policy to protect trans kids without another to replace it.

And in Bernards Township, District for Democracy-recommended candidates swept the three open seats. Draeger said that’s enough to outweigh a conservative faction that this year banned textbooks it said pushed a left-wing agenda.

“A lot of people were embarrassed by the national attention that race had garnered,’’ Draeger said of the Bernards Township race. “Parents’ rights are very popular. But I think the policies that are sort of umbrellaed underneath the term are not.”

D’Arcy predicted the parents’ rights movement would lose steam once candidates motivated by culture war issues take office and face the reality of the job: nitty-gritty tasks like hiring teachers and getting a leaky gymnasium roof fixed.

But in some towns, the fight is raging.

Back in October, when the moderator in a candidates night asked the hopefuls their stances on disclosing transgender kids’ identities, the first few candidates spoke carefully about what they called a painfully complex topic and the need for measured debate and compromise. But Kristina Mazzone — who’d go on to win a seat with the most votes of any candidate — asked: “Why is it okay for my minor child to make life-changing decisions without my knowledge? Why would we want to drive a wedge between parents and children?”

She and other candidates favored by the NJ Project swept the election, and she invited supporters via Facebook to join the next school board meeting to discuss the issues around transgender student policy. There, one speaker blamed “5756” policies for bringing “sexual deviance” into the schools.

Teacher Scott Mazzella reminded the crowd that teachers spend almost all their time focusing on other day-to-day matters.

“I’m so sick of coming to these meetings where we focus on one thing that’s not even a thing,” he said. “I feel like we’re getting lost in the mud here.”