WESTWOOD REGIONAL—Following an hour-plus debate, the Westwood Regional school board voted, 5-4, on Aug. 25 to implement lesson plans that teach the state-mandated health and physical education standards, including controversial sex education topics for middle school students in grades 6–8.
Voting for were Westwood trustees Roberta Hanlon and Andrea Peck; and Township of Washington trustees Maureen Colombo, Joseph McCallister, and board president Frank Romano III.
Voting against were Westwood’s Kristin Pedersen, Michael Pontillo, board vice president Michelle Sembler, and the Township of Washington’s Stacey Price.
Nearly two hours of the three-plus-hour meeting was focused on public comments and board deliberations related to approving the new lesson plans to implement the state standards effective this September.
Within a week, approximately 400 viewers had watched the meeting video over YouTube.
PUBLIC COMMENTS
During public comments, several residents urged the board to “stand up to the state” by not implementing the state sex education standards contained in the new health and physical education curriculum update. Some cited the Garwood School District, in Union County, as one district opposing the teaching of the new state sex education standards and urged the district to follow its lead.
Some public commenters completely opposed the new state standards and some residents supported the teachers and professional staff to implement the new health and phys. ed. standards, including the updated sex education topics.
Several residents also called on trustees to make the new curriculum an opt-in rather than an opt-out choice but no votes were taken on the issue, although at least a couple trustees expressed support to make the new mandated curriculum an opt-in provision for parents.
The lesson plans approved covered the updates approved in 2020 by the state Board of Education to Comprehensive Health and Physical Education. The lesson plans developed by district teachers over the summer addressed the new standards to be implemented for grades 6–8 this fall.
(We have requested the newly approved lessons and will report more in an upcoming issue.)
However, district officials noted that the more advanced and sensitive topics, such as gender identity, gender expression, definitions of terms including oral, anal and vaginal sex, and pregnancy, contraception and abortion will not occur until later in the year for eighth graders.
In addition to approving the new health curriculum, the board approved curriculum updates mandated by the state education department for: computer science and design thinking; English Language arts; Mathematics; Science; Social Studies; Visual and Performing Arts; and World Languages.
McCallister said he did not believe that the new updated health/sex education curriculum “crosses the boundary” into parenting but noted he “completely understands” parents’ and colleagues’ reservations about the new curriculum.
He said the district administration should “make it as easy as possible” for parents to opt-out their children from any parts of the new health curriculum as they choose.
McCallister said he tended to be more in favor of “openness with his own children when it comes to matters of sexual health and development.”
Colombo said graphic words and terms are a “daily occurrence” in middle school and noted that hearing certain words or terms was not “going to promote sexuality.” She said some middle school students will not be getting the correct information if they do not get it from a teacher.
“Kids are exposed to things in a more in-depth way than we were,” said Peck, noting that kids are sexting, or texting nude or partially nude photos, at younger ages than ever before.
“We can’t bury our heads and pretend that our kids are not being exposed to these things,” Peck said. She noted the new health standards also stress abstinence and said she did not think that teaching youngsters about the existence of topics such as anal sex would encourage youngsters to experiment.
Hanlon said though her kids had graduated high school, she sees and hears middle school students talking every day as a crossing guard. She said, “they are sexualized, whether we like it or not.”
She said when she was in school, sex education was taught in high schools and parents were worried about the sex education being taught then. She said “fast-forward” to what middle school students are doing now, including sexting and flashing their breasts.
Hanlon agreed that “parents should be having these discussions” and noted it’s important for students to know the names of body parts, and noted though middle school students may be young, “We’ve got to stop acting like they’re little children.”
She added, “We have to stop turning it into that we’re teaching them how to have sex, we’re not endorsing them to have sex. We’re trying to teach them how to keep themselves safe, and yes they should understand all the different ways out there no matter how uncomfortable it may make an adult.”
She said Superintendent Jill Mortimer made sure the newer standards were being taught to the oldest age group in each middle school grade. She said she was voting yes because youngsters are learning about sexual health and reproduction from peers and “on the street” rather than a health educator.
Hanlon said the new curriculum would not take away parents’ rights to educate their children about sex. “I understand the worry but I see the need,” she said.
Price said the new sex-ed topics were “crossing the boundary between education and parenting” and called the new health standards “an overreach by the state.”
Sembler said the sex-ed curriculum updates expose middle school children to “mature content, beyond the scope of what middle school health teachers should be introducing in a classroom.”
Sembler said the state education department said previously that it might “walk back” some of the more controversial standards and language but it did not.
She said children were being “oversexualized” at younger ages and said many students “are not ready or mature enough” to handle some topics being introduced in the lower grades.
Pedersen said she believed talking about topics such as oral sex, anal sex, gender expression, gender identity, teenage pregnancy and pornography was “desensitizing and oversexualizing children at a very young age.”
She said she believed that the new health standards being proposed by the state “directly contradict” the morals held by many district households.
“Just because the state told us we have to do something does not mean that we should do it,” Sembler said.
Pontillo, Westwood’s police chief, said some concepts the state plans to introduce in middle school “go a little too far.” He highlighted lesson plan suggestions he disagreed with including sixth graders consulting members of the community to talk about puberty and sexual health; introducing the concept of sexual harassment to sixth graders; and ways to define a trusted adult such as a parent, guardian, guidance counselor, teacher, health care professional, family member, clergy member, and trusted family friend. He said a police officer should also be considered a trusted adult.
He said he had a problem with a lesson that encouraged students to think about “sexuality, relationships or harassment” and for staff to provide examples if the children were stuck.
“So an adult in a classroom is going to try to get a 10- or 11-year-old to imagine something of a sexual nature. I just don’t think that that’s appropriate; in my line of work, it’s what we would call grooming,” said Pontillo.
He said he had a problem with the concept of consent being introduced along with and oral, anal and vaginal sex. He said, “Call me old-fashioned, but I think I have a problem with suggesting to 11- and 12-year-olds that they should be having anal sex, that’s a little bit strange and the fact that the state would want us to do that is even worse.”
Moreover, Pontillo criticized a lesson that required 11- and 12-year-olds to write a few paragraphs on sexual behaviors that may put a person at risk for an unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases. He said the lesson asked to conclude with a way to “practice healthy sexual behaviors.”
He said this would require 11- and 12-year-olds “to write sexually explicit stories in the classroom, not appropriate, okay.” He called a lesson to develop a plan to reduce or eliminate risk of unintended pregnancy as a way to teach kids “about how to go and get an abortion.”
Under the new curriculum, he said eighth graders would be “further confused” by concepts of asexuality, gender expression, gender identity, various birth control methods, and consent for oral, anal and vaginal sex, which may have been previously defined.
He said his opinion against the state-mandated sex education standards was bolstered by a “How To Be An Ally” assembly held for middle school students this year. He said middle school students were nervously laughing at topics brought up, including asexuality, gender expression, and gender identity. He asserted the kids were likely nervous and uncomfortable about the topics.
He said it was important for the public to pay attention to the state standards, review lesson plans and ensure the opt-out option is easy to understand and pay close attention to who they vote for and their position on the new curriculum.
Following requests by various speakers and trustees to offer parents the option to opt in to the new health standards, board president Romano said it was important to clarify what is and is not available to parents.
“Of all the options that parents have for educating their children (independent schooling, private schooling, parochial schooling, and public schooling) public schooling (otherwise known as public education) is the one that is mandatory unless you opt out for one of the other choices. There is no opting into public education, a system that is designed for all young people. From top to bottom, there is only opting out,” Romano said.