Linden/Clark – General Assembly candidates Lisa Fabrizio and Patricia Quattrocchi agree with a Cherry Hill father who is suing the local school district for denying him his 14th Amendment parental right. According to the father’s attorney the fundamental rights to direct the care, upbringing and medical decisions of his children,

The NJ Dept of Education policy, which school districts have been encouraged to adopt, directs schools to conceal students’ gender identities and transitioning or transgender status from their parents and gives schools “no duty to inform parents about these critical matters,” the lawsuit alleges.*

The candidates, both parents themselves, sympathize with any parent who believes that a school district is intentionally keeping them in the dark regarding the issues of gender identity, pronouns, preferred name etc. “We carry them in our bodies for 9 months, are the ones tending to them in the middle of the night, bringing them to their first day of school, teaching them right from wrong, how to ride a bike, how to drive a car, encourage them in sports and on and on. But we are cut out of what are probably the most important decisions that they will ever make. This is unacceptable”, said Quattrocchi

Fabrizio agreed and went on to express her concerns, “it is almost as though the districts are being encouraged to condone the children keeping secrets from their parents. It almost feels as though there is the assumption that the parents will be abusive upon learning about their child’s feelings about themselves.”

Fabrizio and Quattrocchi believe that parents are not the enemies of the schools or the students. That secrets should not be kept because doing so only erodes the trust that parents have worked to build with their children. And agree that it appears that parents are being deprived of exercising their 14th Amendment rights.

*per the Cherry Hill Patch