the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, a new bill requires school districts to include instruction on diversity and inclusion. Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi, “While I have sponsored and voted in favor of many pieces of legislation over the years to ensure equality for all, including all races, religions, genders and members of the LGBTQ+ community, today I will be voting no on a bill A-4454. This bill requires school districts to include instruction on diversity and inclusion commencing this year as part of implementation of New Jersey Student Learning Standards. While on its face the bill appears to be one that we should all support, as with all things the devil is in the details.”
“The original version of the bill applied to children in high school. The new version of the bill mandates teaching gender identity and sexual orientation as well as unconscious bias training in Kindergarteners. Due to COVID, our children are not even receiving their full education in core concepts such as math, science, social studies, reading and writing and now we are going to change our curriculums to teach 5 year olds about sexual orientation and how they are inherently biased? How do they intend on teaching little kids about these issues and who will be in charge of developing these programs?
** and if the concept behind this was to teach our children to accept and not bully fellow children in their class who may have two moms or two dads, etc. and to be accepting of one another’s differences I would support that initiative. It is the lack of curriculum, guidance and information provided in mandating these standards that causes concern.”
Assemblyman Robert Auth spoke during the Jan. 11, 2021, Assembly voting session against a bill (A4454) that would require teaching children as young as kindergarten about differences between people. He took an impromptu poll of his constituents, who want the legislature to focus on vaccines and property taxes instead. https://youtu.be/w_KI7HTe3G4
By diversity and inclusion they mean the very opposite.
How come no diversity on NBA or NFL teams?
We need more asians on the teams.
Where is the outrage.
She always skirts the topic. She should vote for the idea the bill isn’t an operational guide for implementation. Get your head out of the weeds. I guess she’s looking for a project plan also. Geez
Just amazing isn’t it.
I had a chat with a couple of my liberal friends from NYC about recent elections results. They are obviously elated about Trump’s defeat and hopeful that Trump movement was a fluke. They are bewildered why I’m a Trump supporter and a republican. And no wonder – they are upper middle class professionals in their 40s, single, with no kids, renting. They don’t own anything aside from stocks. No home, no community, no responsibilities aside to their employer.
Which brings me back to topic at hand… childless libs who create these moronic rules for someone else’s kids unknowingly act as our enemies. We may not see full scope of damage yet, but give it another 10y. There will be more f@k’d up kids on meds, lost on the internet and on track to be childless libs themselves.
Moms and dads who even tacitly approve of left’s cultural influence should know better. I urge all moms and dads who have best interest of their children at heart to petition RDWD faculty to not comply with this evil, damaging directive.
In Ridgewood diversity and inclusion is welcomed by many. Take Somerville School in which the principal annually hosts an international night that attracts hundreds to highlight the diverse nature of the student body’s multicultural and multiracial makeup of the families that send their children to that elementary school. Prior to COVID, this muliday event became so popular that it was moved to the middle school in order to accommodate the overflow crowd that celebrates and welcomes this type of diversity in Ridgewood New Jersey.
Regarding sexual orientation, one only needs to look at the backlash that the Clemente family witnessed from their ex Ridgewood based Christian Church after their son was outed at Rutgers and jumped off the GWB a few years ago to know that much more is needed to be taught to the young children that are currently educated within the Ridgewood public school system.
and Ridgewood schools did all this on their own with no mandate as part of the education process , sorry what the Murphy administration is doing is not this
Yes James, without a mandate, the citizens of Ridgewood did do exactly that to the Clemente family by not even accepting them back into Grace Church after news broke about their son. Educating the town’s children to the realities of understanding and acknowledging sexual identity of others at an early stage in their education is important, being mandated or not by any government agency.
The recent school board controversy, including implied comments about the ethnic makeup of the two dissenting members of the Ridgewood BOE with calls for their outster from that board after being elected by their constituents indicates that much more needs to be done to embrace the diversity that one principal in one of Ridgewood’s elementary schools implemented based upon her own belief and not by edict or mandate from the Ridgewood BOE or any other governing agency.
Meanwhile we keep falling in academic rankings to other schools within the US and the USA collectively falls behind other nations academically.
Excellent.
Start the indoctrination from birth.
My kids went to Hawes and I feel the administration and teachers there did a great job to create an environment of inclusion and diversity. No mandate required. I can’t comment on the higher education yet. Frankly the older the kids get the more they take their cues from social media that has nothing to do with school districts. Just my experience.
Fred, the whole TC incident is an entire book of its own. There are 20 different houses of worship in town and if you don’t agree with the dogma of your church, mosque, or temple, then go to another one. We don’t need government mandated diversity in a day where people can change gender as easily as changing their mind.
Ridgewood, although becoming more diverse as new residents move in, is still inhabited by scores of multi generational families that see these new entrants as a threat as evidenced by the very biased attack on the new minority school board members who were just asking legitimate questions about the budget. I can still hear the calls for their ouster from a duly elected and fair election process because some felt that they didn’t understand the things that the Ridgewood BOE did in the past. Protests in the street were mixed with calls of support for the status quo as the turmoil over the resignation of the then school’s superintendent raged.
While the town is changing in its racial makeup, it wouldn’t hurt to have a uniform set of education standards that celebrate and respect the backgrounds and aspirations of all the town’s diverse law abiding residents. If that takes the form of a state directive mandate, so be it as it does not threaten anyone’s freedom. Ditto for sexual identity education.
Very creepy
Promote differences than complain about it
More virtue signaling bigotry
just what we need more haters teaching are kids to hate
will Hans be teaching the coarse ?
“will Hans be teaching the coarse ?”
Maybe we should be focusing on teaching kids how to spell…
only bigots stick up for bigots
shouldn’t this begin in the home? teaching diversity
I’m a gay male firmly against this bill.
There is so much more to learn than this subject.
LGBTQ were killed during the Holocaust (approx 5-15k)
and so were the Romani (Gypsies 200-500k)
Should we teach our students about the Romani? Tolerance should be taught . People are different coming from different perspectives. Maybe some resources for the LGBTQ community. Most of what the bill proposes any student can learn on their own. It’s a matter of time vs money. How about we prepare students to succeed?
How about science? Or learning to play an instrument? Or how economies work? Or civics? Learning that Pete Buttigieg is gay and married to a man is hardly worth the outrageous taxes we pay to send a student to Ridgewood schools.