10th District Lawmakers: ‘We Told You So’

Democrats’ Education Agenda is Attack on Family Values, Parental Rights

Senator Jim Holzapfel and Assemblymen Greg McGuckin and John Catalano today berated Governor Murphy’s Democrat-led Legislature in Trenton for the “woke” curriculum that elementary school students will find when they crack open their schoolbooks next fall.

As the result of legislation passed and signed into law in 2019 and 2021, combined with updated health and physical education standards promulgated by the State Board of Education in 2020, students as young as Kindergarten will role play about gender types and pressure to conform, and by 8th Grade they will learn about vaginal, oral and anal sex.

“This is exactly why we voted no on the bills and fought so hard to stop the progressive agenda,” said Holzapfel. “We knew these bills would put our schools on a slippery slope, but who would have thought they would have gone this far so fast?

“Parents are confused and troubled. They see the left-wing state moving in and taking over their role of raising their children and passing on their spiritual, cultural and societal beliefs to a new generation,” Holzapfel said. “They don’t understand how this happened.”

Legislation (A-4454/S-2781) requiring diversity and inclusivity lessons to be part of the state learning standards was signed into law on 3/1/2021. The state goal was to highlight and promote diversity, including economic diversity, equity, inclusion, tolerance, and belonging in connection with gender and sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, disabilities, and religious tolerance. Holzapfel, McGuckin and Catalano opposed the bill, which advanced without Republican support.

“It is clear that Murphy and the Democrats have a ‘woke’ agenda, and they want to use the schools to manipulate the minds of even the youngest children,” McGuckin said. “The new curriculum standards are an outright scheme to indoctrinate our kids and eliminate the influences of moms and dads across the state. If we don’t stop this before September, there is no telling what might be next.”

The Comprehensive Health and Physical Education Standards released by the New Jersey State Board of Education in 2020, including requirements that 5th Graders learn about hormones, sexual development, gender-role stereotypes, and sexual orientation and gender identity.

Holzapfel, McGuckin and Catalano are sponsors of a resolution (SCR-24/ACR-21) opposing the State Board’s Student Learning Standards and calls on the board to revise those standards, which are updated every five years.

“We can’t allow the progressives to trample the core values and beliefs that form the foundations of New Jersey families,” said Catalano. “Parents have responsibilities and rights, and they are being cast aside by a Democrat agenda intent on reprogramming our kids.

“This is just one more troubling example of the progressive priorities of Trenton Democrats who reject traditional family dynamics and are determined to force change on state residents, whether they like it or not.”

The 10th District Lawmakers sponsor numerous bills that oppose progressivism and protect parental and individual rights.

Holzapfel joins Senator Michael Testa sponsoring the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” (S-589) requiring that participation in school-sanctioned sports be based on biological sex at birth. The Assembly version (A-1630) is sponsored by McGuckin and Catalano.

Holzapfel, McGuckin and Catalano also sponsor legislation (S-1571/A-370) to increase transparency by requiring public schools to post curriculum plans online and to make available to public inspection by parents the textbooks and other materials used to implement curriculum plans.