Common sense prevails in New Jersey as school districts allowed to drop trans student policy after years-long fight

Score another win for parental rights and common sense.Three school districts in New Jersey were given the green light to drop a controversial transgender student policy after years of legal wrangling.On Monday, a state appellate court issued the ruling allowing Monmouth County districts Middletown, Manalapan-Englishtown and Marlboro to remove from their books the state’s guidelines on how parents are notified if their child decides to transition.The decision was welcomed by members of the Middletown school board.On Thursday night, they voted 7 to 1 to toss controversial policy 5756 in the dustbin — and simply deal with trans students and parental notification on a case-by-case basis.

(Manalapan and Marlboro will both vote on the issue next week).“This is an overdue victory for parental rights and against government overreach,” Middletown Board of Education Vice President Jacqueline Tobacco told The Post.“It’s been a long drawn out waste of everyone’s time.”Attorney Bruce Padula, who represents both Middletown and Manalapan-Englishtown told The Post he “considers it a victory that [districts] are now put in the same position as every other school district in the state, that they can make the same policy decisions that they feel are best for their community.”To recap, this convoluted and colossal waste of time: In 2019, Middletown adopted policy 5756 because they were told by Strauss Esmay, a third party vendor tasked with interpreting policies for schools, that it was mandatory.But as COVID-19 shutdowns ignited a powerful parental rights movement that upended school boards across the country, new administrations began to take stock of their priorities.

That included approaches to trans students — a suddenly growing population.In the spring of 2023, Middletown along with Manalapan-Englishtown and Marlboro all crafted similar amended policies in regard to transgender students.In the case of Middletown, parents would be told if their c...