UPCOMING COLTS NECK BOE MEETING TOMORROW
May 24th at 7 pm
Sign this petition to let the BOE know that transphobia has NO PLACE IN OUR SCHOOLS!
Share the petition everywhere you can, especially with any Colts Neck residents you know.
If you’re a resident and cannot attend the meeting, please send a message to the Board at the link below letting them know you are OPPOSED TO THEIR POLICY CHANGES!
Contact the Colts Neck Board of Education
NOTE: All communications received by the Board of Education will be posted to public Board meeting agendas.
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Here is a TEMPLATE you can use to email the Colts Neck BOE and let them know that you are OPPOSED to their proposed Transgender Policy changes:
Subject: Opposing language in Transgender Policy eliminating faculty discretion related to parental notification.
I am writing this correspondence to express my concern over certain proposed amendments to Board Policy 5756 entitled Transgender Students, specifically the language related to parental notification. As a parent of young children, I certainly understand and appreciate the importance of transparency between home and school. However, I also understand the importance of protecting the confidentiality of our most vulnerable students. I respectfully urge you to reconsider the language that requires parental notification unless there is documented evidence of abuse. I believe every effort should be made by our school personnel to encourage transgender students to communicate with their families about their gender identification (and any other issue of importance). But the language proposed in this policy does not allow school personnel to use their discretion in determining whether parental notification is in the student’s best interest. Rather, it dictates that unless there is documented evidence of abuse, abandonment, cruelty or neglect of a child, parents must be notified, even if such notification is not in the best interest of the child.
To be clear, I think parental notification should be and is the default in our district. I am simply asking that the policy allow for district personnel to exercise their discretion to not disclose sensitive information if they think -based not on documented evidence, but on their training and knowledge and instincts -that such disclosure would be harmful to a student. Our district personnel know our families and should be given the benefit of their own discretion should they need to use it. If this is adopted as is, any staff member who doesn’t “promptly” work with a child to notify his or her parents -even if such prompt notification is against the best interest of the child-stands to be in violation of Board policy.
On a final note, the parental notification language in this policy, for all practical purposes, will have the most impact on our middle school students. While these students may not have vast life experience behind them, they deserve a safe space to explore who they are and who they want to be. I know our faculty currently provides them this space. Please allow them to continue to do so.
Thank you for your consideration and for your dedication to the students of the district. It is my sincerest hope that you are able to move beyond the political noise that so many districts have been mired in and continue to advance the mission of the Colts Neck Township Schools.
Sincerely,
