well all the clashes over local Schoolboard races on the ballot could bring more voters to the polls this year the normally sleepy election has turned highly politicized as candidates spent the cycle sparring over so-called culture wars issues like parental rights and protections for transgender students a senior correspondent Joan gagas reports those topics have the potential to fuel or eclipse the legislative races parental rights has taken center stage and ction um both for B of ad and I believe Statewide jacquel in tobacco is running for reelection to the school board in Middletown where she served for three years she's a self-proclaimed parental rights candidate and helped draft the policy that instructs the school district to notify parents when a student is publicly transitioning their gender identity that policy ended Middletown in court against the Attorney General tobacco defends the policy this policy only is triggered when a student is making a public social transition so when student is ready to have the entire School District be aware that they are changing gender or that they have they have a different gender identity this policy then becomes a conversation between the superintendent the counselors and the student to be student driven on when to notify a parent um when to or when not to notify a parent the only time they won't notify a parent is when there's proven evidence of abuse in the home Justin Mian disagrees with the policy sure maybe there's been no signs of abuse before but this is a big step in in a young man or woman's life that they're taking and they're acknowledging why would we ever want to put any undue pressure on them to to come forward to their parents immediately but in the end if if you're being a diligent parent and you're forming those relationships with your children then really you shouldn't have any concerns that policy and the overall approach to handling issues like this inspired me to run against tobacco for a board position I think that there's a a tremendous level of intolerance that's gone on inside of our town debates like this have played out in school board campaigns around the state with parental Choice a hot button issue that's driving both conservative candidates and Progressive opponents to run for open seats organizations like the New Jersey project are supporting parents rights candidates in the majority of cases parents are the best people to raise their children and to make medical and psychological decisions for their children and we need to have more parents involved in the schools and on the board of education as for whether she supports the idea of a more political and by extension polarizing School environment stoffer says we try to pretend that board of education is non partisan it's always been partisan the new organization districts for democracy started by former Democratic Congressman Tom malinowski says it's nonpartisan and that hot button topics like parental rights are being used intentionally this election season a lot of Republicans who are running for the state legislature have recognized that if you make people angry and Afraid um they tend to turn out and vote and so there's a lot of misinformation about our health curriculum about our sex ed curriculum about what it means to discuss gender in school districts for democracy says it only supports non-political candidates at no point do we look at someone's political party what we do look at is do you believe that public school should have a variety of viewpoints do you believe that books should be banned if that's a stance that you're running on that's probably not someone that we're going to support if we're talking about taking the politics out it feels like we're only moving forward with with adding the politics in it's just which side are you on you know when you start to drill down and look at the actual policies that are being promoted by um like more extreme candidates by harder right candidates these are not policies that are popular with the major majority of people in our state with the majority of parents who have kids in school with the majority of people in our communities we'll see tomorrow how the majority will vote and whether parental rights will be a part of that vote I'm Joanna Gagis NJ Spotlight News [Music]