ROCKLIN, Calif. – A California school board voted Monday to affirm policies that allowed a book about transgenderism to be read to kindergarten students, despite fierce pushback from parents.

The board of education for the Rocklin Academy Gateway School voted unanimously Monday night to affirm its literature selection policies, as well as recommendations from administrators to accommodate transgender students who wish to use a particular bathroom that may not correspond to their biological sex, the Sacramento Bee reports.

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The decision came at a board meeting packed with about 500 concerned parents and community members, and follows a simmering controversy that started when a kindergarten teacher at the school read the children’s book “I Am Jazz,” which explains transgender issues.

The book was given to a kindergarten teacher by a transgender kindergartner in June and read to students. The special reading session also included a student who changed into different clothes to reveal their “true gender,” though parents were not informed about the book or coming out party.

Parents who objected to the lesson contacted the California Family Council, Capitol Resource Institute, and Pacific Justice Institute, which highlighted the issue in the media and advocated on behalf of the families.

At Monday’s board meeting, two factions lined up to speak out for and against changes to school policy regarding literature selection and transgender bathroom policies, with one group of parents toting signs that read “Trans Rights are Human Rights” and “Trans Kids Have Courage” and the other group donning stickers that read “Protect Parental Rights,” the Bee reports.

“To teach my kid that biologically this boy was born a boy and to teach him that now he’s a girl is very confusing and I feel that it’s a lie,” parent Chelsea McQuistan said, according to Fox 40.

“I am concerned. I have a 4-year-old, and he would be starting kindergarten next year. My concern is that a book that was read was outside the curriculum, and it was a sensitive topic, and the parents weren’t notified,” Wendy Sickler, a parent with two students already at the school, told board members.

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Ultimately, the school board voted to approve five recommendations: to affirm the school’s exisiting literature selection policy that allows teachers to use books outside the curriculum if they’re age appropriate, to provide mandatory notice to parents if controversial or sensitive topics are discussed, to affirm a commitment to policy bullying, to allow students to request a special accommodation if they’re uncomfortable with a specific bathroom, and to decline a proposed “opt out” that would have allowed parents to opt their kids out of subjects they find controversial, according to Fox 40.

Parents on both sides of the debate were disappointed to some degree.

“I’m a little bit disappointed because I thought out movement in accepting gay, lesbian and transgender children was moving forward,” said Beryl Mayne, a LBGT activist. “We make two steps forward and we go back a step. It’s still a problem with accepting gays, lesbians and transgender.”

School officials alleged the “I Am Jazz” reading this summer did not require prior parental notification because it’s not sex education, and the book was allegedly age appropriate.

Sickler and others are concerned that allowing school officials to determine what’s controversial, rather than giving parents an opportunity to opt their children out of such lessons, could lead to more problems down to road. Several weeks after the “I Am Jazz” reading, for example, a Rocklin Academy first-grader was punished for a “pronoun mishap” when she addressed her transgender classmate on the playground, Fox News reports.

Several parents have already removed their children from the school because of the controversy this summer.

“I do believe the proposal in the board packet is lose,” Sickler said. “It says they will endeavor to notify. I do not think that is strong, and I don’t think it makes staff accountable. If that is the policy that is in place, I will not support that.”