Fellow board member: School board not place to express political view
OCEAN CITY — A verbal altercation took place Feb. 22 during the Ocean City Board of Education meeting over state legislation regarding reading material and mental health care.
During new business, board member Catherine Panico read a statement opposing the legislation, eliciting a scathing rebuke from student representative Brian Garrabrand and question of appropriateness from board member Jacqueline McAlister.
“What’s coming down the pike should be announced for parents and for the community,” Panico said, referring the the Freedom to Read Act and another bill before the Legislature that would lower the age of consent to 14 for mental health treatment. “I want to make sure that the public is aware of these two important bills, which I believe are not good for public schools or children.”
Sponsored by state Sen. Andrew Zwicker, D-16, and M. Teresa Ruiz, D-29, and co-sponsored by state Sen. Angela McKnight, the Freedom to Read Act establishes requirements for library material in public school libraries and public libraries and protects school library media specialists and librarians from harassment.
It was introduced Jan. 29 and has been referred to the Senate Education Committee.
“I believe what the bill really does is completely remove local control of school libraries from locally elected boards of education it. It strips away community members’ constitutional rights to express dissatisfaction with decisions made by elected officials,” Panico said.
She said the bill states boards of education must adopt a policy on curating materials and mandates minimum requirements “that are so exhaustive that boards of education have no discretion in drafting mandated policy.”
Panico said the bill puts too much power in the hands of teachers and librarians.
“The bill gives librarians absolute civil and criminal immunity. Under this bill, if you express disagreement with the librarian’s choices, you are guilty of harassment,” she said. “This bill also obliterates the state’s obscenity statue, and allows librarians to decide what is obscene and what is not. If this bill passes, a library media specialist in the name of diversity can curate library materials that show less than completely covered human genitals, pubic region or buttocks all in violation of the obscenity statue and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”
Panico said boards should work with administrators to decide what library materials will be available to children, with parents and community having input.
“This bill indefensibly removes this responsibility from local control and places in total control of the state. It is a clear attempt to intimidate and stop board members, parents or community members who may disagree with the materials in the public school library from participating in the educational process,” she said.
Panico, who is backed by the national group Moms for Liberty, said board members must take seriously their responsibility to ensure that all diverse viewpoints are expressed in the library’s materials but that board members, parents and community members who want to express dissatisfaction have a constitutional right to do so.
“This bill seeks to restrict and eliminate those rights to the detriment of our democracy and public school system,” she said.
The Senate Health Committee approved S1188/1970 on Feb. 22 that would lower the age of consent for minors to seek outpatient mental and behavioral health care from 16 to 14. The committee approved the measure in a 5-1 vote, with Sen. Bob Singer (R-Ocean) abstaining. State Sen. Owen Henry (R-Middlesex) was the only member to vote against the bill, which changes a single word in state law. The Assembly companion legislation is A2874.
Panico, who incorrectly state multiple times that the bill would lower the age of consent to 13, said minors should not be able to make health care choices without the consent of their parents.
“It would permit a 13-year-old child to decide what type of medical treatment he or she should receive without input or consent from the child’s parent. The bill further states any treatment the 13-year-old receives is confidential between the 13-year-old child and doctor. The child’s parents do not have any right to know what medical services are provided to their child,” she said. “We have laws that dictate what age individuals must be to get married, enter contracts, take student loans, drink alcohol, possess firearms and reach other legal decisions. Those under the age of majority, or minors, are considered incapable of making such decisions in the eyes of the law.
“For some reason, the same representatives believe young children should be able to decide how to treat their mental illness or emotional disorder without any input or consent from parents. I think such action makes no sense and urge everyone to contact educational committee members and oppose the bills.”
Garrabrand took immediate offense with Panico’s statements.
“The issue with the libraries are the fact that conservative extremist groups like Moms for Liberty are coming into schools, like school board members, and essentially targeting and taking down minorities like the LGBTQ community and trans rights, all in the interest of protecting their children,” he said. “So I personally just find that to be very disgusting, especially as you see all over the country LGBTQ kids getting targeted in schools, being outed by staff to their parents. It is causing so much mental and honestly physical harm to them, as we just saw the other day where in Oklahoma a nonbinary student was killed after getting bullied and bullied and bullied.
He said the issue with 14-year-olds being able to seek care without parental consent is a privacy issue, “because without that you are essentially putting these children in harm.”
Board President Kevin Barnes said the measures are just a proposal at this point and there is nothing before the board. Vice President Chris Halliday said it’s very early in the process.
But McAlister suggested Panico was out of order, “certainly in regards to the agenda but also for expressing political opinions to the school board.”
“If you hold political views, your issue is with the Legislature and the bills coming out of committee. This is a school board, for goodness sakes. We arranged the agenda in a particular way, by design, to give committee reports and to vote on issues before the board, so I don’t think political discussions, anything like that belongs in front of the school board,” McAlister said. “Our pursuit is in the best education we can give the kids in our community and I just don’t think we should be persuading the public either way about bills coming out of Legislature. It’s not the place of the school board, not at all. So when I look at the agenda and I see new business, I don’t know how that constitutes new business.”
Board member Liz Nicoletti, also backed by Moms for Liberty, said the legislation “will affect our children in school and will affect our rights as parents regardless of where you stand politically.”
McAlister said there is no board member comment anymore and no political opinions being shared from the board, instead it is charge of long-range fiscal and policy oversight.
Halliday said Panico had every right to bring it up, noting he had checked with counsel to make sure.
Barnes, meanwhile, said “this is not the purview of the school board. Let’s keep it to school board matters that are in front of us now.”
During public comment, Kelly Johnson, who identified herself as a mother of five from Marmora, thanked Panico for bringing the information to her attention.
“I am really thrilled that we have board members that are paying attention to what is coming down the pike,” she said.
Johnston said the bill should be known as “Distribute Obscene Materials to Minors Act” because “what it actually is is allowing teachers and librarians, specifically, nobody else, to give materials that in our state are illegal. If this bill had passed on Thursday, it would still be illegal for any adults to give this kind of material to children.We know across the country, parents are coming in up in arms with what is being shown to our children in the safest place they should be in the schools and this is just another attempt to take our rights away to protect our children.”
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff