Sparta teachers union vote of no-confidence in five board members sets up election tussle

The resignation of a popular high school mental health counselor and a no-confidence vote by the teachers' union against five members of the school board have raised the stakes in an already polarizing school board election in Sparta Township.

“I felt that I can’t keep looking the other way…there’s a climate problem here,” said Lauren Monaco, student assistance coordinator at Sparta High School, about her recent resignation.

Monaco, who is gay, won a Governor's Educational Services Professional award for 2022-23. The board’s signaling earlier this year to remove a policy that guides schools on how to treat transgender students was the last straw for her, Monaco said.

In October, five members of the Sparta Township school board voted to remove the district's policy that mirrored the state's guidance related to sharing information with parents about a student who comes out as transgender. The move has been controversial.

State Attorney General Matt Platkin has sued four other school districts on grounds of violating the civil rights of transgender students after they removed the policy and adopted a modified version that requires parent notification. Sparta did not take the extra step to require parental notification.

At the same October meeting, Sparta teachers’ union president and high school librarian Angela De Luccia said that a majority of its members had passed a no-confidence vote against five school board trustees: board president Kurt Morris, Leigh McMichael, LeeAnne Pitzer, Christina Keiling, and Walter Knapp.

Pitzer and Keiling are running in next week’s school board election. All five members won seats on the school board last year, sharing a parental rights slate with Lauren Collier.

“Parental rights” refers to a recent trend of school board candidates and elected members who advocate for conservative values and a greater parental influence in K-12 education decisions, from how sex education is taught to what textbooks are used and which books should be barred from school libraries.

In Sparta, the “Voices of Reason” slate has incumbent Longo-Keiling running on a parental rights platform, with newcomers Dana Dumpert and Robert Meara. Another incumbent parental rights candidate, LeeAnne Pitzer, is running alone.

Two other candidates, Kaitlin Gagnon and Jen Grana, opposed the parental rights slate last year, and lost. They are running again on a “Stop Raising Taxes” slate, with newcomer and former student representative on the school board, Chad Wood, on a platform of removing what they called “personal politics” from the board.

At a meeting last month to discuss these issues, 98% of Sparta Education Association members voted no confidence in five board members, according to the union president.

Dispute over sex ed

Some of the teachers union’s disenchantment began in January when newly installed board members moved to require staff to publish lesson plans for health classes online before teaching them in class, after the Murphy administration changed state sex-education standards.

Parental rights groups have criticized the standards for being too mature. Their opponents agree with the state’s defense that these standards were crafted by experts after considering the changing cultural milieu that children are exposed to.

The board never implemented that plan, but it alarmed teachers as undermining their authority and adding to workload.

School districts are required to publish curricula online, and state law permits parents to opt their children out of sex-ed.

Dispute over library book

In the months that followed, the board overruled a district committee’s recommendation about a library book and changed longstanding policies around how library materials are selected.

Parent Christina Korines challenged a book slated for eighth graders, “Upside of Unrequited,” on the grounds that a book for ages 14 and up should be in a high school because it used graphic language about sex, orgasms and drug use. The district followed procedure and had a committee review the book.

Five of seven committee members voted that the book remain at the middle school library for 8th graders only. At a February meeting, five board members overruled the recommendation and voted to move the book out of the middle school and into the high school library.

Gagnon, a school board candidate, said the book challenge amounted to “veiled homophobia” because it featured LGBTQ+ characters, noting that other books on similar themes had been contested in Sparta school boards meetings.

Two students spoke in favor of keeping the book in the middle school library, saying these are topics some eighth graders discuss, and could provide important perspective.

School policy permits parents to prevent children from reading or issuing a library book by informing the librarian. “My hope is that if a parent doesn’t want the child to read a book or author, they can email the librarian, and that should suffice," union president De Luccia said. "We have no issue with the parent making that decision for a child, but one parent making that decision for the entire district is problematic.”

New policy on library resources

The board then changed the district’s “Resource Materials” policy, adding a definition of “sexualized” content and emphasizing that parents have a right to “guide what their children read.” The Sparta school board also changed the regulation accompanying the policy, adding that library materials should be reviewed for religious, ideological, sexualized and lewd content.

In comparison, a model policy on the New Jersey School Librarian’s Association website is shorter and more general. It says that library resources are to be recommended to the school superintendent by staff and approved by the school board.

The board also changed its policy on "Public Grievances and Complaints," increasing board member presence on a committee to review complaints, from one to two members.

Transgender student guidance policy rescinded

Then came the move by the board’s parental rights majority to remove the transgender student guidance policy. After the attorney general’s office said that the policy wasn’t mandatory, some school districts began rescinding it.

The rescinded policy echoed state law, leaving it up to the school district to notify parents about matters relating to gender and sexual orientation, after assessing what is best for the child. Parental rights groups have protested this policy drives a wedge between children and parents.

But schools generally do want to inform parents if their children are thinking of coming out or transitioning, said Monaco, the mental health counselor, and hold back only if the child is at risk.

“Most of the time there is not a safety concern and we work towards having the parents involved,” she said.

Monaco said she wasn’t alone feeling excluded by the board for not inviting collaboration from staff on these policy changes, especially one aimed to protect the safety of students.

“It’s frustrating," Monaco said. "I am a mental health professional in the school, and I am standing in front of you begging to share my concerns professionally. I want to share my concerns and the data that shows this group of students is at higher risk for substance abuse, for suicide and self-harming.”

Rescinding the transgender policy could make LGBTQ+ students feel targeted, she said, referring to her own experience coming out as a gay woman.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Sparta NJ school board faces compelling election race after vote