CONTROVERSIAL GENDER TEACHING HAS OUTRAGED PARENTS

Republican Congressional candidate John Flora is asking the state Board of Education to postpone its May 4 meeting to give time for parents to address the board’s policy recommendations on sex education in grade schools.

Flora, who is running for the Republican nomination in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, said the newly revealed sex education curriculum has parents and educators outraged over its “inappropriate content.”

Flora, who is the current mayor of Fredon Township, said he wants the board to postpone its scheduled meeting next Wednesday and provide adequate time at an appropriate venue so parents can address the board’s newly revealed sex education curriculum.
“Parents and many educators are rightly concerned about the new sex education curriculum and exposing young children to gender issues that no child in grade school should have to contend with,” said Flora.
“The parents and teachers need a forum to express their concerns and I am asking the state board of education to provide one,” added Flora.

Flora called the gender and sex curriculum recommended by the state BOE, “another step in the indoctrination of our children by the progressives – and it is being done in New Jersey with complete lack of transparency or debate.”

The state board meets monthly but only conducts open topic public testimony sessions in September, January and May, according to the board’s website. https://www.nj.gov/education/sboe/meetings/schedule/index.shtml
The board has not yet posted its agenda ahead of next week’s meeting, so anyone planning on attending the meeting has no idea what the board will be considering, says Flora.

Moreover, repeated attempts to contact the board via telephone and email to determine if the board’s May 4 meeting is in person or virtual have gone unanswered, said Flora.
“The curriculum changes which the state board approved, coupled with legislation signed by Gov. Murphy is a total capitulation to radical left-wing advocates, including the teachers’ union, whose goal is to force children to question their birth sex and blur the biological distinctions of gender,” said Flora, a former school board president.

In 2019 the legislature passed a bill requiring that middle and high school students be taught about the societal contributions of LGBTQ people and the disabled. In 2021, the legislature passed, and Gov. Murphy signed into law, a bill mandating that schools promote “diversity of gender and sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, disabilities, and religious tolerance” to students in grades K-12.
“All this was done with no public input, little publicity, and surprisingly little dissent from Republican leaders in the legislature,” says Flora.

“The curriculum changes the leftists are enacting are couched in terms of broadening student knowledge. In reality, the curriculum on gender diversity leads to students questioning their biological sex by age 7. Teaching racial diversity in our schools has morphed into the divisive Critical Race Theory taught throughout the curriculum and acceptance of the discredited 1619 Project, which teaches young children that America is a racist nation and that every white student should be ashamed,” said Flora.

“The left does not want religion taught or practiced in schools, but wants religious tolerance taught. I’m not sure how you do that. Where in the curriculum is the teaching of the Judaeo-Christian values upon which this nation was founded?” asked Flora.

“The operation of the educational system has been hijacked away from parents and taxpayers by social equity and gender activists, the teachers’ union, and anonymous bureaucrats. It’s time that control of our schools was placed in the hands of parents and the people who pay for education in our country,” concluded Flora.