MARY GODLESKI/APLily McBeth and Steven Goldstein listened during a school board meeting in Eagleswood Township, N.J. Miss McBeth, 71, had a sex-change operation and wants to return to teaching.

After two hours of public debate and a private meeting with Miss McBeth and her lawyer, the board took no action on calls by several parents to bar Miss McBeth from returning to the school where she taught for five years before becoming a woman.

Miss McBeth, a retired sales executive who was married for 33 years and had three children, underwent gender-reassignment surgery last year and re-applied for her job under her new name.

Several parents said children in the school - which consists of kindergarten through sixth grade - were not old enough to understand the concept of changing one's gender.

Other parents said young children will be confused by the conflicting appearance of Miss McBeth, who has a deep voice and masculine features but otherwise looks like a woman.

"I will not allow you to put my kids in a petri dish and hope it all turns out fine," said Mark Schnepp, who had taken out an ad in a local newspaper urging parents to turn out for the meeting.

Several people spoke in support of Miss McBeth, including three transgendered people and two of Miss McBeth's former studentsand a handful of others, saying the fact that she is a good teacher was more important than whether she appears as a man or a woman in class.

"There's really nothing to fear because a person is transgender," said Karina Mari, a mother of three school-age children who said she has transgender relatives.

It's unclear how soon Miss McBeth will resume teaching, Mr. Carr said. That depends on the need for substitutes and the availability of certified teachers, who get priority, he said.

Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, a gay-rights advocacy group supporting Miss McBeth's bid to resume teaching, called the school board's action historic. This text is invisible on the page, but this text is affected by the invisible item's flow. This text is invisible on the page, but this text is affected by the invisible item's flow. More headlines...

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