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The New York Times
Film With Same-Sex
Parents Splits School District
By RICHARD G. JONES,
nytimes.com on the Web, September 14, 2007
EVESHAM TOWNSHIP, N.J., Sept.
7 — The children talked among themselves about their parents — children of
interracial families, children of divorce, children who had been adopted — and
that did not seem to cause a ripple.
“It’s not your fault,” says Montana, a first grader whose parents are divorced.
Emily describes her interracial family — her father is of European descent and
her mother’s background is Asian — this way: “It doesn’t mean you have to
be a rat to marry a rat. You can be a rat and marry a mouse.”
But at another point in a state-approved educational video shown to third
graders here, Daniel introduces his parents: “These are my two dads.”
Another child says, “It’s really cool have to two gay dads, because they brought
us into a home, and they adopted us, and they love us.”
That was enough to entangle this wealthy suburb of 45,000, about 15 miles east
of Philadelphia, in a heated debate among parents and educators. As the
issue simmered, the district decided to shelve the film, provoking the threat of
a lawsuit by gay rights activists who said the district’s refusal to show the
video was a violation of state antidiscrimination laws.
The issue first arose in December after a class of third graders at the J.
Harold Van Zant School here was shown “That’s a Family!,” a documentary created
by an Academy Award-winning filmmaker intended to show students the different
forms that families can take, as part of the curriculum required in New Jersey.
But the district temporarily stopped showing the video after some parents
complained that they should be able to decide whether their third-grade children
should learn about same-sex couples in the classroom.
School district officials then sought to allay their concerns by providing a
special screening for the parents of third graders, although only about a fifth
of them attended. A poll conducted for the district found the town divided
almost evenly: 50.4 percent were in favor of showing the video, and 49.5
percent were opposed.
After eight months of deliberations, a 27-member committee appointed by the
school board and made up of parents, teachers and administrators recommended
that the district continue to show the video. But on Aug. 30, the district
rejected the proposal and stood by its decision to ban the film.
“I didn’t expect it to come out of Evesham,” Trish Everhart, a member of the
parent teacher association at Richard L. Rice Elementary School here, said of
the dispute. “I felt like we were living in the ’50s.”
Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, a gay rights group, said
the district’s decision, which he called outdated and illegal, was based on
antigay prejudice.
“It’s not about parental control, it’s about fear of gay people,” Mr. Goldstein
said. “We think the school board’s decision hinges on its fear of one
community — the lesbian and gay community — and violates the state’s law against
discrimination.”
Mr. Goldstein said his group was considering a lawsuit against the district.
School officials, including Patricia M. Lucas, the superintendent of schools
here, declined requests for interviews. But in a statement, they defended
their decision and said they would rely on other methods to meet state standards
for teaching children about nontraditional families.
“Discussion and instruction on the subject matter involving family diversity
will continue in compliance with state core curriculum content standards
mandates,” the statement read.
Opponents of the video praised the district’s decision, saying that their
position was based not on prejudice, but on what they felt was suitable for
their children.
“I don’t think it was appropriate,” said Jennifer Monteleone, 35, who is a
parent of two children at the Robert B. Jaggard Elementary School. “If it
was maybe in fifth grade, but in third grade they’re a little too young.”
Yet Ms. Monteleone also questioned whether the video should be shown at all
because of the presence of the same-sex couples.
“It’s something to be discussed within families,” she said. “I think it’s
the parents’ responsibility to teach the kids about that stuff.”
Delores Stepnowski, a parent of another Jaggard student, said parents should
have been given more notice that the video would be shown.
“Something that controversial should have been discussed,” Ms. Stepnowski said.
The children “shouldn’t learn questionable things in school that they’re not
ready for and don’t understand.”
In New Jersey, all 615 districts are required to include lessons about
alternative families, although they are left to choose whether to do so through
the use of lectures, videos or other means. State education officials said
they did not know how many other districts, if any, chose to show “That’s a
Family!,” or whether any of them balked at its presentation.
The film was created by Debra Chasnoff, the executive director of Women’s
Educational Media, which produced and distributes it. Ms. Chasnoff won an
Academy Award for a 1991 documentary about the effects of nuclear weapons
production.
Ms. Chasnoff said that the film, which was intended as “a catalyst for this
discussion,” had been presented in hundreds of other districts around the
country, and that Evesham was the first place to stop showing it.
“Our approach in making the film is young people giving young people a chance to
know what’s going on in their lives,” Ms. Chasnoff said. “There are some
things that all loving families share.”
She noted that when a protest arose in Novato, Calif., in 2001, the district
addressed the concerns of parents by allowing them to decide on an individual
basis whether their children would see the film.
“It’s part of our fifth-grade curriculum,” said Connie Benz, the communications
coordinator for the Novato Unified School District, in Marin County north of San
Francisco. “We haven’t had any problems because parents can opt out.”
One education expert, Steven Athanases, an associate professor of education at
the University of California at Davis, praised Ms. Chasnoff’s “incredible
filmmaking skill” and said the film had great potential as a teaching tool when
paired with additional instruction.
“In general, films require good, facilitated discussion,” Dr. Athanases said.
“Just showing a film is not necessarily a good idea.”
He also said that in general, third graders could grasp the concepts in the film
“as long as they’re facilitated.”
Parents like Ms. Everhart, whose 9-year-old daughter, Olivia, attends Rice
Elementary School, agreed.
“This is the way the world is now,” she said. “I think this is the age
where kids need to learn these things.”
Ms. Everhart, who served on the panel that recommended using the video, said she
was troubled because the district ignored suggestions like giving the parents an
option or bumping up its use to the fourth grade.
As Mary Ellis, a parent of a 10-year-old son at Rice, put it: “People who
don’t want the school to show the video say, ‘We can teach our own kids.’ Sure
you can. But who’s going to teach you?”
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