After a full year of the Lower Township school board telling us that they were not teaching critical race theory (CRT) and were not going to adhere to the sex education portion of the New Jersey Comprehensive Health and Physical Education Standards, the curriculum for the 2022–2023 school year has been adopted and made public. Contrary to what we have been told, the curriculum is laced with age-inappropriate sexual and gender-identity material
It is alarming that the school board members who vowed that their kids will never be exposed to the explicit sexual material that the New Jersey Department of Education has been mandating since the beginning of this year have now voted to include the very same material in the curriculum. Below are just a few examples of what the curriculum contains.
In grades K through 2, children are expected to list medically accurate names for body parts, including the genitals, define reproduction, discuss how individuals make their own choices about how to express themselves, and discuss the range of ways people express their gender and how gender-role stereotypes may limit behavior.
In grades 3 and 4, the students are to describe how hormones affect body function, and state emotional changes during puberty, which is characterized as a time of physical, social, and emotional change. They are taught how the body changes during puberty and how these changes influence personal self-care.
In grade 5 they are instructed to explain common human sexual development and the role of hormones (e.g., romantic and sexual feelings, masturbation, mood swings, timing of pubertal onset), and to explain the relationship between sexual intercourse and human reproduction. And then they have a 16-minute video in the lesson featuring pre-teen boys and girls discussing things such as erections, penis shapes and sizes, and wet dreams. They are also taught to differentiate between sexual orientation and gender identity.
According to the District’s website, any student whose parent presents to the principal a signed statement that any part of the instruction in health, family life education, or sex education is in conflict with his/her conscience or sincerely held moral or religious beliefs shall be excused from that portion of the course where such instruction is being given and no penalties as to credit or graduation shall result. But the problem is that the offensive material is dispersed throughout the curriculum, and unless the parents are sitting in the classroom, they will not know what portion of the class to opt out of. And the ability to opt out of all health and physical education classes is not available.
So why are they doing this? Acting Commissioner of Education, Angelica Allen-McMillan said, “It is a disservice and actively harmful to deny our students medically accurate, age and developmentally appropriate information about their bodies, and about the personal and interpersonal relationships that shape childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.” She also said that the standards are guidelines for what concepts students should know and when, and that local school boards are tasked with creating curricula based on the standards — and should be considering public input when doing so.
Yet, despite public opposition to the sexual materials in these standards, with no public support for them, the Lower Township school board included the most offensive materials in the 2022-2023 curriculum.
The Acting Commissioner also said that a school district’s failure to adhere to the standards will be met with consequences, but she refused to specify what they would be. The biggest threat is to cut state aid, which will have a devastating impact on school districts as they will be forced to slash their budgets or raise taxes. This could cause them to lose their positions as school board members in their next election. The State also has the authority to replace school board members. So to remain in power, they just go along and ignore the public concerns and their own moral beliefs.
The more difficult question is why are these progressive leaders pushing the sex education agenda on the heels of the controversy surrounding critical race theory. If you look closely at both, they are related in that both seek to undermine the role of parents, guilt children into thinking that they have an underlying bias, and ultimately erode the traditional family unit.
The apparent end game for the politicians in Washington, New Jersey and some other progressive states is to groom our children into thinking in a progressive manner. And part of that is to incorporate sex education into the school curriculum starting in grade K, before their parents get a chance to introduce it to them at an appropriate age and in a way that conforms to their moral beliefs. Yet at the same time, the elected school board members, who have said that they do not want their children exposed to the sexually explicit materials, are still advancing it in the school curriculum.
What we are seeing is an underground current that is systematically working its way into our culture, and before you know it, this ideology of the progressives will be mainstream and irreversible. The problem is one of apathy, in that most parents are not paying attention to what is going on or they just don’t care. And for those who have no children in school, it does not matter because it does not affect them. But in reality, it is having a demoralizing effect on all of us.
So, it is time for everyone who has a moral belief that this is wrong, not just parents with young children, to reject any form of age-inappropriate sex education as part of the curriculum in our public schools.
