Board members who voted against them won’t support resolutions, say it is time to get away from politics, divisiveness and move on
OCEAN CITY – In a marathon Ocean City Board of Education meeting lasting nearly four hours Thursday, the attempt by three of the newest members to revisit the New Jersey Health and Physical Education standards was overwhelmingly shot down after impassioned comments by the board members who voted against the standards back in August.
The more tenured members explained why they voted against the standards in the first place, then told Robin Shaffer, Liz Nicoletti and Catherine Panico is was time to stop rehashing an issue that has been decided, asserting they had political motives that don’t belong on a nonpartisan school board.
Under “new business” nearly an hour into the meeting, after a lengthy presentation on the school budget for 2023-24, Shaffer proposed a pair of resolutions, with support of Nicoletti and Panico. One was entitled “Protecting Our Children” that expressed dissatisfaction with the standards districts had to adopt for this school year. The lengthy resolution essentially said the standards had inappropriate content for children at certain developmental stages, didn’t fit with family values and took away parental rights. The resolution said the Ocean City board called upon the state to revise the standards.
The second resolution was to “nullify” the Ocean City board’s August vote to adopt the standards. Shaffer said it wouldn’t affect the district’s implementation of curriculum designed around the standards, but it would “clean the slate” for members who voted against it because they could be targeted by the governor’s office or state Ethics Commission. Asked his opinion, school board solicitor Michael Stanton said board members took an oath to uphold mandates from the state Education Department and could risk being brought up on ethics charges for voting against them.
Shaffer, Nicoletti and Panico were not on the board when the standards were adopted, and therefore didn’t vote on them, but had appeared at multiple school board meetings before the August vote, imploring the board not to adopt them, taking issue with aspects of sex education, gender and gender identify they believe were inappropriate. (Sex education is only one aspect of the broader standards on health and physical fitness.) They ran for election in November 2022, largely based on their opposition to the standards and on issues of parental rights in a campaign that sparked a larger debate over LGBTQ+ students, who felt they were being targeted.
The trio, and attorney Kevin Barnes, who ran separately, won seats on the board, displacing four incumbents, board president Dr. Patrick Kane. Dr. Charles Roche, Greg Whelan and Ryan Leonard, who was appointed to the board minutes before vote on the standard. Kane, Roche and Leonard voted for the district to adopt the standards; Whelan voted no.
It was the board member who weren’t up for election in November and voted against adopting the standards, who rebuked Shaffer, Nicoletti and Panico when it came time for comment on the resolutions at hand. (There were two separate comment periods for each of the resolutions Shaffer proposed, but most members let their statements stand for both.)
Disston Vanderslice, Jacqueline McAlister, Bill Holmes, Cecelia Gallelli-Keyes, were four of the five members (including Whelan) who were in the minority of the 6-5 vote to adopt the standards. They along with Fran Newman, who wasn’t at that August meeting, and new member Barnes forcefully condemned the proposed resolutions.
They basically said if someone wanted to come after them for their votes against the standards, let them.
“This has been pretty exhausting,” Vanderslice said. Speaking as a dad and a board member, he said, “I don’t feel like I need my slate cleaned. They can come get me.”
He urged the board to move forward. “We need to concentrate on the students, not the politics. It’s my opinion that voting on this resolution does nothing but draw negative attention to the school,” he said.
He added he has a young son, another on the way and that he has faith in the teachers and administration “to do what’s best for the kids. I do not need a political statement like this (Shaffer’s resolution) to protect my kids. I’ll protect them.”
Vanderslice said the resolution appeared to be “politically attention grabbing, great for page views and clicks, but nothing for our kids.”
He joined the board to support the students and believed the board was making great strides until the past three months, which is when the new members took office.
McAlister, a board member since 2012, said Vanderslice asked if it had always “been like this,” referring to the contentiousness. “The answer is no,” she said, adding she was always proud of being part of the district and on the board. She cited the many student achievements over the years and their academic and professional success after graduating.
“We always have millions of things to celebrate until divisive politics crossed the threshold of our doors and since that time it has been so extraordinary trying and difficult,” she said.
“We do this not for our own children. We do this for all the children,” McAlister said of serving.
“Divisive politics have no place in a school of all places,” she said. To talk politics, run for City Council or a legislative seat, she said, because the politics in schools are damaging the children.
“I don’t know what the right path forward is, but I do know what is wrong. It is wrong to keep hammering away at these divisive topics,” she said. “This division is bringing out the worst in all of us.”
McAlister said it was up to the adults to put aside the anger and hatefulness.
She also said she knew it was a risk to vote against the standards, but did so because she found some of the language in the standards to be graphic sexually. She said she reserved the right to object, but she didn’t object to the ability of teachers and administrators to craft a curriculum around the standards and said it was perfectly reasonable for parents to have the ability to opt-out of any lessons they believe inappropriate for their children. (The trio of new board members had asked that parents be required to opt-in rather than opt out.)
“In defense of all of our children, I don’t know why we have to keep bringing this up. It’s upsetting to the children. It is unproductive, it is divisive, angry and spewing hateful language in a community we all live in. That’s not right,” she said.
McAlister said her objection was to the language, but that objection was wrongly construed as being against the LGBTQ+ students.
“If you still object, maybe you should opt your children out. That is your right. To date we have 11 families who have opted out,” she said.
“I don’t want my slate wiped clean. I stand by everything I say and believe and I think this is unproductive and would not recommend we vote in favor of this,” she said.
Gallelli-Keyes piggybacked on the comments of Vanderslice and McAlister and said her vote was because of the graphic nature of some of the language in the standards for primary school students.
She said the district has taken “extraordinary strides” to work with parents on information meetings and the opt-out provision, and that teachers and administrators have done well creating the curriculum. (Every school district was able to tailor their curriculum; administrators made clear that when it came to the most sensitive topics, if students wanted to delve further their teachers were instructed to tell them to ask their parents.)
Gallelli-Keyes said they had to meet in the middle and to be able to show students how to work together when they disagree.
“We’re hurting our children, especially at the high school,” she said. “The divisiveness that’s in there, it’s so sad to watch. I’m disgusted over it. It’s time for us adults, us leaders, to get together and stop this nonsense.”
Holmes, an Upper Township representative to the board, said he was fortunate to be part of the board who hired the “wonderful” superintendent who is charged with hiring “wonderful” staff that are entrusted with the children of several communities.
“One of the questions I had during the interview process was, ‘How are you going to deal with all of this, the behavior on both sides?’ Let’s face it, both sides have been inappropriate,” Holmes said about pointing fingers and calling names.
“They’ve done an outstanding job in minimizing what they have to deliver,” he said. “I stand by my vote. I do not need somebody to look out for me. If someone wants my job,” he added, they can have it.
Holmes said there is a lot that goes into the job and it is wrong to believe it is a “rubber stamp” board, which has tough discussions coming from members with different backgrounds and beliefs.
“I’m proud of the vote I had on August 24. The last thing I want to do is support something” to remove that vote,” he said. “I’m also appreciate of the staff in the way they’ve educated the public and school community and taken it upon themselves to do what they needed to do for the children of the community.”
“I’m not in support of this …. I don’t need anyone watching my back,” he said. “I walked into that proudly and I’m not turning around and kowtowing now. They can drag me out if they want.”
Shaffer interjected at that point to agree with much of what the four board members said and agreed the staff and superintendent had done a wonderful job of minimizing the impact of the standards, but noted that in the future the board would have to vote on other standards and questioned if they felt they had the authority to vote no.
Barnes said he didn’t like the standards as written and isn’t a fan of Gov. Phil Murphy, but his personal opinions had to take a back seat to the needs of all children.
He said his disapproval of the standards were not “for the nefarious reasons we heard,” but only because he believed them age-inappropriate. “I am a fierce and protective father of two young daughters and I had every intention of opting them out,” he said, but first wanted to see how they would be implemented because students don’t see the standards, they see curriculum and lesson plans which are up to the districts.
Barnes said administrators took input from the community and did an “excellent job” of crafting the curriculum and lesson plans “that are within the confines of the law but are age appropriate.”
“We are in the third marking period. I have not heard any complaints from parents of school-age children. To my knowledge the opt-outs were only six,” he said, but noted McAlister cited 11, which he said “was still a very small number.”
He encouraged anyone with doubts about the curriculum to read it and talk to parents of school-age children. Barnes said his own experiences have been positive.
With his own fifth-grade daughter, he said that day was the first day of talking about the “taboo” subjects and he got the opt-out notice.
“Here is all the nasty stuff we were being warned about: the curriculum is being designed to help boys and girls understand the physical and emotional changes they experience during puberty and acknowledge these changes are a normal part of growth and development.
“That doesn’t seem to scary to me,” Barnes said. The second part was learning the physiology of their bodies and correct terminology for basic parts of the reproductive system and the menstrual cycle.
“I didn’t want to have that conversation,” he said, but his wife did. He pointed out his girls are blessed with two actively involved parents, but noted that isn’t the case for all children and that is who the curriculum serves.
Barnes said under state law, the board has no meaningful choice but to adopt the standards and the code of ethics mandates the board members uphold all laws of the state Board of Education. Failure to implement the standards is a failure to follow the law and an ethical violation for board members.
“That to me is a full stop. I don’t need a court determination to be the first step in whether or not I violated an ethical standard. That’s an eye-catcher. Ethics are there for a reason,” he said.
“This nonsenses has got to stop,” Barnes said, adding a quote he couldn’t source: “We must prepare our children for their futures, not our pasts.”
Newman said she has been serving nearly 28 years but “it has been a tough three months …. It’s the repeating of the same thing over and over and over again. It has to stop. It is delaying the board from moving forward and doing what’s best for our kids and what’s best for our staff,” she said.
The district’s staff are professionals. “They know their job. Let them do their job,” Newman said, adding parents needed to do their jobs as well. She also noted the issue became political when elections were moved from April to November, coinciding with other elected offices, because so few people were taking part in April school board elections. Newman mentioned how voters once turned down an Upper Township school budget with zero increase.
She said many people aren’t educated on who is running for the board and often just choose randomly. “Sometimes there’s not rhyme or reason to who gets voted in and who gets elected,” she said.
She agreed with Barnes that not all children had supportive and involved parents and teachers had to fill that role.
“I came back to that we’re a public school. We have to teach to all kids …. We need to let our teachers be the professionals,” Newman said. She also agreed the administration did a wonderful job creating an age-appropriate curriculum around the standards.
“I will come back to that until the cows come home. Parents need to be parents and talk to their kids. It’s not a secret. The school is not hiding anything. So please, I don’t need anybody to wipe my slate clean,” she said.
Nicoletti said she agreed with a lot of what the other members were saying and felt their frustration. She said her efforts have been to protect the “innocence” of children.
After she said she was told that this is a public school and if she wanted she could send her kids to a Christian school, Nicoletti said she there used to be prayer in public school. (U.S. Supreme Court rulings starting in 1962 effectively banned prayer, citing the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ….”)
Nicoletti said with things such as DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) and other aspects are dealing with social wellbeing. “Gosh, prayer would really help in those departments.”
She said people have gotten involved in school boards because of the children and they were all fighting for what they believe in. She also noted the division and all the political talk.
“I’m asking all of us to stop it. All of us,” she said. “You want to put this to rest, put it to rest tonight. We got elected to be in here. A lot of people don’t like us, but a lot of people did like us. And maybe they just voted because they saw three names together.”
She noted she has been coming to board meetings ever since the pandemic shut down schools, advocating for them to reopen and that a lot of people want the school to get back to academics.
“Tonight we can put it to rest. We can take a vote. Everyone is entitled to what they want to say. All I now is Ocean City is a great place and we all agree on that. And maybe we could agree we just want the best for our kids,” Nicoletti said. “I agree we have to stop the divisive(ness).”
“No one wants to be bullied. It’s no fun on either side …. It sounds like we’re going to move forward.”
After the other members spoke, Shaffer lobbied again for his motion.
Members of the public then lined up and offered their comments for more than another hour before the board voted 9-3 against both of Shaffer’s resolutions. The majority of commenters either criticized the three board members or asked the board to vote against the resolutions.
Shaffer, Nicoletti and Panico voted in favor of both resolutions.
Vanderslice, McAlister, Gallelli-Keyes, Holmes, Newman, Barnes, Kristie Chisholm, board Vice President Joe Clark and board President Chris Halliday voted no on both.
Later, in final board comments, Panico spoke up.
“I will not stop,” she said. “We did not bring politics into this school. They were here before us. We do not aim to divide or alienate any particular identity group, rather make all of these standards more palatable.
“I have been an advocate for opting in, right out of the gate, and I think I feel we haven’t discussed it enough,” Panico said. “For all of my colleagues here, I don’t know how we can talk about being exhausted about something we haven’t really discussed enough.
“I feel we can always do more,” she added, noting she wasn’t suggesting the teachers or administrators hadn’t done enough. “I think we can do more still.
“What I find exhausting is being vilified for participating in that process. The animosity, the rhetoric and divisive undercurrent, especially from my colleagues. I’m patient. I will continue my work. I’m not exhausted. I will not stop trying to do what I feel is right and in the best interest of all our kids.”
– PHOTOS and STORY by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff