It's the Bryan Lair Show on WNYC. Welcome back everybody. I'm WNYC reporter Nancy

Solomon, filling in for Bryan today. Despite being a solidly democratic state, the

culture wars are alive and well in New Jersey and one of the primary places is in its suburban

schools. A handful of districts are trying to model themselves after Florida's don't

say gay law by requiring teachers to inform parents if they see any signs of a student

making any changes to their gender identity or sexual orientation. And that's despite

the state having some of the strongest civil rights protections in the country. The

issue has been gaining traction in New Jersey since the last gubernatorial race two years

ago. And it's also being fought vigorously by the state attorney general. Joining us now

to talk about the LGBT kids and schools in the garden state is Nikita Barrackoff, state

house reporter for NJ Monitor. Hi Nikita, thanks for joining us. Hi Nancy, thanks for having

me. Listeners, are you a parent of a transgendered kid and concerned about their treatment at school?

Or teachers? We know you're out there and maybe not quite in the classroom yet we'd love to hear

from you. What's been your experience with kids and gender in your classroom? 212433 WNYC. That's

212433 9692. If you can't get through on the phone, you can send a text to that number or tweet

at Brian Lara. So Nikita, the school districts that pass these policies are Manala Penn English

town. That's one school district, Maulboro and Middletown. Explain exactly when this happened

and where these policies stand at the moment. Sure. So these three districts all enacted

policies to accommodate transgender students back in 2019. But those policies were amended in

June to require parents to be notified if their child requests an accommodation. And that could

be something like a name change or a pronoun change or a request to use a bathroom matching with

their gender expression or identity. Currently, these policies have been blocked by preliminary

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