Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Parental Rights Transgender Policy topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Public commenter urges parental control on transgender and abortion instruction; board says district policy supports parents
Summary
A member of the public urged the Clark Township Board to follow Gov. Murphy’s guidance on parental decision-making for transgender students and to keep abortion-related instruction out of schools; the board and superintendent said the district supports parents and that a transgender-student policy was previously adopted.
A member of the public told the Clark Township Board of Education that the board should follow Gov. Murphy’s law and give parents the final say on transgender student matters, and voiced concern about abortion-related instruction in schools. The board and superintendent replied that the district supports parental involvement and that the board had previously adopted a policy addressing transgender students.
During the public-comment period, the speaker identified himself as Bull Draghi of 47 Post Road, Clark, New Jersey, and asked whether the district would “follow governor Murphy's law that says a transgender student that wants to change [status], and disagrees with the parent, that the parent would have the last say.” He said he had been told by Superintendent Ed Grande that the district would follow that approach and asked whether the board also supported it. “Yes. And the board supports that stance also,” the superintendent replied.
The speaker expressed a second concern about instruction on abortion, saying he believed such material should be left to parents and not taught in school. He told the board he could not find specifics about what the district teaches and urged parental control: “They shouldn't get into it at all in school. Parental guidance is the main thing.”
Superintendent Ed Grande told the commenter the board previously voted on a policy for transgender students “maybe 2 or 3 years back” and said the policy “puts to rights the way we adopted it,” indicating the district has an existing policy governing how the matter is handled.
Why it matters: public comments raise community expectations around parental rights, district policy and curriculum content. The exchange documents both a constituent concern and the superintendent’s statement that the board has an existing transgender-student policy.
Provenance: The public comment and responses appear in the non-agenda public-comment portion of the meeting.
