a superior court judge has blocked a policy that would require Educators to inform parents when a student comes out as transgender or gay several Monmouth County school districts have taken on similar policies recently but were immediately met with legal action from the state attorney general Matt platkin saying the policies violate the state's anti-discrimination laws but parents rights groups have taken on the issue insisting they need such policies to know what's happening in their children's lives the judge's decision is not a final one but rather a halt on the policies for now a ruling that leaves some districts without an approved policy to start the school year I'm joined Now by Michael Gottesman founder of the New Jersey public education Coalition who's been battling these policies in school board meetings around the state Michael so great to have you with us today what can you tell us about what school boards now can and cannot do following Superior Court Judge David Bauman's ruling late on Friday well the important thing to realize is that what the ruling was a procedural ruling the state had applied for um preliminary restraining orders and that's basically what the judge was ruling on the underlying case is going to go before the office of administrative law so basically the judge ruled the following um that there was a sufficient proof of detrimental impact and sufficient proof of detrimental treatment so basically the judge said there's a reasonable probability that the state will be successful in pursuing those two claims and that's one of the reasons why he issued the preliminary restraining order and essentially saying then that these policies do violate the rights of transgender lgbtq plus youth within school districts so help us understand because as of right now Middletown Manalapan and Marlboro basically have to resort to what was the status quo the policies they had in place before the these proposed changes what does that now mean for those districts in terms of what they're able to do uh well the revised policies that they passed uh are effectively Frozen as you said we're keeping the status quo so it basically reverts back to the original policies that they had um Now understand again the judge did not rule that those policies were illegal he ruled that there's a reasonable probability that the state is going to be successful in proving that those were illegal but the important things um the judge made a very important point he said we're not talking about dismissing parents rights we all recognize that there are parents rights but what we have to also recognize in judge Bauman's words they are not immutable there are certain government interests which control and take precedent over parents rights so when we talk about parents rights versus students rights the judge did kind of put the onus on the districts and the state to work together to find consensus and yet this is a matter that could play out in the courts for the next several years do you anticipate that these districts are going to take this fight all the way to the end or do you envision some sort of consensus Happening Here well we have a situation in New Jersey now where National groups have entered into the conversation and questions like these which are really local questions questions that should be determined by the residents uh of the school district are now being made national issues and they're bringing in the the false Narrative of parents rights um so we have to anticipate that groups like moms for Liberty which are very very uh involved in our state right now and have several County districts have that intention they're trying to bring these cases through the courts in New Jersey and ultimately my belief is that they want to bring it into the federal courts and possibly bring it all the way up to the Supreme Court the school districts will have to fight the appeals and the school districts will have to pay for those appeals and unfortunately it could be hundreds of thousands of dollars and that's going to come directly out of a budget designed to teach kids and instead it's going to be paying attorneys so we're going to have higher property taxes and lower property values as a result of these things happening in in the individual school districts we could certainly talk about this a lot longer we just don't have the time Michael Gottesman, New Jersey publication education Coalition thank you so much my pleasure have a good evening [Music]