One of N.J.’s largest school districts drops transgender policy
Published: May. 22, 2025, 8:01 a.m.
By Nyah Marshall | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
One of New Jersey’s largest school districts has once again reversed course and dropped a policy that protected transgender students’ privacy.
The Edison Township Board of Education voted Tuesday to rescind a policy known as 5756 that prevented school staff from outing transgender students to their families without consent.
The issue came up for debate seven months ago, when Edison school officials ultimately voted to keep the policy, after facing criticism for earlier attempts to abolish it.
But on Tuesday night, with a newly-elected school board and president in place, school officials revisited the issue for a third time. This time, the board voted 6-3 to drop the policy.
Edison Township is the state’s fifth-largest district, serving about 17,000 students.
Before the vote, Edison School Board President Jingwei Shi addressed dozens of students, parents and community members who attended the meeting.
Shi said the board’s decision does not require staff to inform parents of a student’s gender identity, but allows them to handle situations on a “case-by-case basis.”
“When a student feels safe enough to share their identity or request a name change with a trusted staff member, that trust should also include confidence that the staff member will act in the student’s best interests, including making a professional judgment not to inform parents when appropriate,” he said.
“Repealing the policy puts decision-making back in the hands of educators who are closest to the students and are best positioned to protect and support them, not to harm them,” Shi added.
Advocates for the policy said abolishing it leaves transgender students unprotected, especially those who identify as transgender at school but do not feel safe telling their parents at home.
Tuesday’s school board meeting ran over five hours, with many students and teachers urging the board to keep the transgender protections in place.
Edison Education Association President Matt Hrevnak, who leads the union representing the district’s more than 1,000 teachers, said the policy should not be dropped without another one in place.
“If I have to be the person forced to tell a parent, and then the next day that kid comes in abused, or worse yet, because of their parents’ reaction, takes their own life — I have to live with that the rest of my life,” Hrevnak said at a meeting.
“That policy was developed in coordination with state law, the law hasn’t changed,” he said.
Most of New Jersey’s 600 school districts adopted similar transgender student policies following 2018 state guidance. However, after a recent appellate court decision, some districts, including Edison, have voted to eliminate the transgender policy.
The February court decision came after State Attorney General Matthew Platkin sued five school districts in Morris and Monmouth counties in 2023 for dropping or amending their transgender student policies.
The state appeals court’s decision allowed the school districts involved in the court case to consider alternative transgender policies while while the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights reviews the case.
Shortly after the decision, the Middletown Township school board, one of the districts challenging Policy 5756 in court, dropped its policy requiring staff to keep students’ gender identities private.
Amid local policy debates, federal policy is also shifting, with the Trump administration attempting to roll back protections for transgender youth.
New Jersey advocates for LGBTQ+ rights warn that decisions like those made in Edison and Middletown create legal risks and undermine transgender students’ safety and support in schools.
When Edison first began considering dropping the policy in October 2024, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and Garden State Equality sent a letter to Edison Superintendent Edward Aldarelli protesting the vote to remove the transgender policy.
“Revoking Policy 5756 leaves administrators without clear guidance of the law, opens their districts to legal liability, and, most alarmingly, signals to LGBTQ+ students and families that their schools may not be a safe and welcoming environment,” Elyla Huertas, senior staff attorney for the ACLU-NJ, said Wednesday.
“As LGBTQ+ rights face renewed threats across the country, New Jersey school districts should lead by example and ensure that students in our state feel safe, supported and respected,” Huertas said.
Aldarelli, the district’s superintendent, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.