Same-sex video is pulled in Evesham

The Evesham school board last night voted 7-1 to stop showing third graders a controversial educational video that includes depictions of families headed by same-sex couples.

The vote came after a committee of scholars and educators, appointed by the board to review the issue, recommended keeping the video in the curriculum, but showing it to fourth graders, instead of to third graders, as had been done.

But after a number of board members spoke against the film, the board did away with the video, called That's a Family, altogether.

The half-hour video shows children explaining their various family structures, including those with mixed-race couples and divorced, single and adoptive parents.

Jeanne Smith, a spokeswoman for the board, said: "The opinions expressed by members of the board against the video dealt with their worry that the video had become so divisive that it would continue to inflame the district and that there would be no healing."

In a survey of the issue, district parents were split nearly half and half on the issue, she said

Reacting to last night's vote, Steven Goldstein, chairman of the gay civil rights group Garden State Equality, said: "It's very likely that we in the civil rights community will take legal action to have the committee's recommendation to show this film enforced. We believe the board's actions are illegal."

Evesham started showing the video last school year as part of a state-mandated health curriculum, which requires students to "identify different kinds of families and explain that families may differ for many reasons."

The segment of That's a Family on same-sex couples, however, drew the ire of many parents who objected to their children learning about homosexuality in schools.

School officials and supporters of the video said the goal of That's a Family was to teach tolerance and prevent bullying, not to promote or teach children about homosexuality.

The state Department of Education did not require the film to be used, but the department had reviewed That's a Family and deemed it "developmentally appropriate" for third and fourth graders.

After the video was shown at Evesham's Van Zant Elementary - the first and only district school to screen it - a parent complained to NBC10 about the content.

After that news report, more parents, who said they were not given a detailed explanation of the content of the video beforehand, complained to school officials.

The school board arranged for a screening for third-grade parents, after which many of them engaged in a heated debate, at times shouting each other down across a cavernous gymnasium.

A similar scene played out at the school board's next regular meeting a few weeks later. By then, national talk-radio hosts and Fox News commentators had weighed in on the issue, and Garden State Equality also had jumped into the fray.

After the screening, the school board surveyed parents who were unable to watch the video, asking if they would want their children excused from watching it. The results were split about evenly.

In February, the school board suspended the use of the video in the classroom.