| By now you know the school board voted 7 to 1 to nix - for now, because there's a lot more to come - the film "That's a Family" from the curriculum. This is the film that includes same-sex families among other famiies, which drove some parents nuts.
Garden State Equality had heard before going into tonight's meeting that our side was going to lose. Thus we distributed, before the evening began, embargoed talking points to the journalists there saying what GSE was going to do next. Our plan, which indeed we're moving forward with, is:
1. Likely litigation, based on a violation of the state's Law Against Discrimination, among other grounds
2. The formation of a local organization, United Families of Evesham, to go block by block to educate parents about the film and to work to increase tolerance of all groups of people
3. An Open Public Records Act request, which our friends at the ACLU of New Jersey filed on Thursday. We want to see the behind the scenes deliberations of this tortured vote.
I say tortured vote because here's what happened:
Much to our shock - indeed, contrary to what we heard - the special committee that the school board created and whose members it appointed to make a recommendation, announced at the beginning of the evening that they voted to keep the film in the curriculum. It wasn't a perfect decision in that the committee recommended the first year for the film to be taught go from 3rd to 4th grade, but hey, given what we expected, we were elated.
The committee, comprised of professional educators, social workers and the like, actually said it would prefer not even to move the film from the 3rd grade, that it wasn't a close call - but that they made this nominal concession to the protesting parents.
Almost everyone in the room thought the battle was over - that our side won. Right-wing parents went nuts - screams of outrage. Oh was it ugly. Some even left the room thinking the story was over. Blue Jersey's Jay Lassiter and I, both there, thought that, as did a couple of large-news organization reporters. Hence the initial posting by Juan, and others on the internet, about what seemed to be a victory.
And let's be real - when a government entity creates a special commission or committee to look into something, ie to hand off a situation to escape the heat - it is very rare that the commission or committee's recommendations aren't accepted.
Then someone with the school district, a person on our side, whispered to me, not so fast, the full school board is going to vote tonight to accept or reject - and this person added, don't bet on it being accepted.
So that's where the loss among the school board came in. What was fascinating about the 7 to 1 vote against is that a majority of the school board had no problem with the film or showing it to kids.
They admitted flat-out that it was political. They cited a poll they took in which 51 percent of parents favored the film and 49 percent opposed, and that was enough for them, the school board, to keep the film banned.
Most telling was that the lawyer for the school board, sitting on the dias with all the school board members, as well as one of the school board members himself who voted among the majority to ban the film, told the crowd they saw litigation coming and that the legal grounds for the continued ban might not be so clear.
They said it themselves, my goodness. We thank them - and so this story continues and we'll be there every step of the way. |
