CHERRY HILL, N.J. (KYW Newsradio) — Superintendent Kwame Morton says he’s been receiving vile emails and threats after a list naming students who opted out of certain sex-ed topics was unintentionally released.
The Family Life curriculum in Cherry Hill Public Schools includes some controversial topics, like sections on LGBTQ and self-pleasure, which dozens of students' parents opted them out of.
Morton says the school district complied with a public records request in the summer of 2023 by running a report showing which students opted out. Dozens of student names were listed, and the district redacted every one of them before sending out a PDF file.
However, the names got out through an inadvertent error.
"When that PDF file is converted to an HTML file and the contrast is changed, names become viewable,” Morton said — an inadvertent clerical mistake.
“Upon me learning that information, we received confirmation. We had the information taken down from that website — destroyed, completely removed.”
Harvey Vasquez is the parent of a student whose name was released. “I feel that elementary school is a little bit too early for them to start learning about this,” he said.
The students' names were removed over a year after the redaction error, after Vasquez spoke at a board meeting on Oct. 29 where he blasted the district for waiting so long to correct the record.
"Your administration was informed of this. Why did you not take care of it then? Why wait another year until I came up with the information?" Vasquez said.
When the incident gained national attention and became social media fodder, Morton says he received multiple threats.
“You know, calling me every name in the book.”
But all of them were directed at him and other officials, not the students, and that’s something he says he can handle.
Morton says it was never the district’s intention to have those names made public. And furthermore, the personal political beliefs of teachers and staff have no place in the district.
“We respect individual decisions and family decisions. It’s up to the individual families to decide the direction they want to follow with their children.”
He says the district is changing procedures to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Vasquez, who was 22 votes short of winning a seat on the school board last month, says he condemns the hateful messages sent to Morton. But he adds he’s still waiting for an apology from the district, and believes whoever is responsible should be fired.
“They have to apologize to our community. They still haven’t done that.”