Christie Vetos Sociological Strip Search Bill

file photo via nj.gov

Governor Chris Christie yesterday vetoed S454/A2421, the bill we’ve been fighting for years that would have allowed public schools to ask students intrusive personal questions about themselves and their family members without written parental consent.

In his veto message, Christie said:

This bill allows students of any age to participate in voluntary surveys, including those inquiring about sexual behavior and attitudes, if schools send prior written notice to their parents or guardians. The bill provides that the failure of a parent or guardian to respond to such notice shall be treated as affirmative approval of their child’s participation.

I recognize that surveys may help identify serious issues affecting students. However, this bill imprudently decreases parental involvement in a child’s educational development. I believe a parent or guardian’s legitimate interest to make an informed decision before their child is exposed to sensitive content outweighs the desire to make survey administration moreconvenient.

Accordingly, I herewith return Senate Bill No. 454 (FirstReprint) without my approval.

Thank you Governor Christie

Save Jersey has the news of the other bills Christie took action on yesterday.

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Sociological Strip Search Bill Passes Assembly, Scheduled For Senate Vote Today

New Jersey Public Schools are on the verge of becoming part of the government’s domestic spying apparatus.  If the NSA misses something while going through your phone calls and emails, they will have the questionnaires your children fill out in school to fall back on, if the Sociological Strip Search bill passes, as amended by the Assembly last week, and is signed into law by Governor Christie.

In case you’ve missed our previous coverage of this proposed law, it authorizes schools to conduct intrusive surveys into the lives of students without parental consent.   The bill, A/2421 in the Assembly and S/454 in the Senate, amends a current law passed in 2001 that requires written parental consent before school can question students about:

mental and psychological problems potentially embarrassing to the student or the student’s family;

 illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating and demeaning behavior;

critical appraisals of other individuals with whom a respondent has a close family relationship;

legally recognized privileged or analogous relationships, such as those of lawyers, physicians, and ministers;

income, other than that required by law to determine eligibility for participation in a program or for receiving financial assistance under a program;

The educational establishment uses the information mined from the surveys to apply for federal money.  Not enough parents are providing written consent, like they do for field trips and extracurricular programs, so the ‘educators’ and the companies and non-profits that sell drug abuse and anti-bullying programs to the schools, want to replace written parental consent for the children to be subject to the intrusion with simple parental notification.  They are counting on parents not taking the affirmative action of objecting to the surveys, thereby giving ‘negative consent.’

The bill passed the Assembly last week, largely along partisan lines.  Four Republicans, Mary Pat Angelini, Betty Lou DeCroce , John Amodeo and Chris A. Brown voted with the Democrats to pass the bill.  Today it goes back to the Senate for a second reading to concur with the amendments the Assembly made.  The bill originally passed the Senate 25-15 in February.

Contact your Senator and ask her/him to vote NO today.  Contact Governor Christie and ask him to veto the bill if/when it gets to his desk.

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