The Central Bucks School Board is doing WHAT with our tax dollars?

Imagine you're a CBSD school board member and you have $180,000 to spend. Do you:

  • (a) Hire a new teacher and expand professional development

  • (b) Invest in classroom technology

  • (c) Fund greener building and transportation initiatives
    OR…

  • (d) Spend taxpayer dollars on public relations consultants to spin the damaging, xenophobic, racist, and amateurish policies you and your colleagues have been stumbling over each other to inflict on children?

From the Bucks County Herald:

CB School Board partners with PR firm to improve community relations

By Maximilian Driks

Posted Thursday, August 4, 2022 12:03 am

The Central Bucks School Board voted at its July 26 meeting to hire the firm Devine + Partners in an attempt to repair strained public relations and improve the school district’s image.


Doing so will cost the district approximately $15,000 per month, or $180,000 per year, plus any out-of-pocket costs that will be billed separately.


“As with many school systems across the country, the Central Bucks School District has been a microcosm of the kind of combative rhetoric that has divided communities in recent years,” said Devine + Partners in their June communications proposal to CBSD.


“Controversies come and go. They are part of running any school system, let alone the state’s third-largest district. But the academics, activities, innovation, and achievements, as well as the standards, inclusive values, and commitment undergirding them are permanent characteristics of CBSD and its people, from the youngest learners to the adults guiding their educational experiences.”


The controversies that Devine + Partners were hired to address are a series of executive decisions made by the Central Bucks School District, most of which appear targeted towards the LGBTQ+ student body. This includes the removal of Pride Flags in the classroom, under the justification that they were political symbols, and as such, not fit for the classroom. It also includes only allowing students to attend Human Growth and Development classes that matched with their assigned genders at birth, and pausing said classes shortly after they began, effectively outing these students to their teachers and peers.

….


Just a thought: perhaps they wouldn’t have to waste tax payer dollars if they didn’t make terrible decisions to satisfy a radical minority.

This is not dystopian fiction, this is happening here in our Central Bucks School District

From the Bucks County Courier Times

Central Bucks approves library policy some view as book ban

Chris Ullery

Despite objections from teachers, parents and staff, and a legal threat from ACLU over free speech concerns, Central Bucks School District will move ahead with a controversial library policy giving residents the ability to challenge books available in schools.

A 6-3 school board vote Tuesday night enacted Library Policy 109.2. Opponents say the policy is a de facto book ban for materials related to the LGBTQ community and people of color, while supporters say it ensures access to age-appropriate material that falls in line with the district’s educational goals.

Board directors Karen Smith, Tabitha Dell'Angelo and Dr. Mariam Mahmud were the dissenting votes that followed hours of sometimes heated public comment from almost 30 community members. Only a small few voiced support for the policy. 

Any official challenges to books will have to wait until the board votes at a later meeting on how the policy will be implemented through the district.

The policy sets criteria for the selection, removal and replacement of books. School officials said it doesn’t seek to censor any particular community, pointing to safeguards like a protection for “classics” and replacing removed books with new ones that touch on similar subject matter but without age-inappropriate content.

The policy has been lambasted over the course of several board and committee meetings since the library policy first started appearing on meeting agendas in early 2022. 

Any resident living in the school district could challenge a book in one of its libraries, giving what an ACLU representative in May was “unlimited” discretion for people to go after books they don’t like and poses serious free speech concerns.

Other organizations, like the Education Law Center in Pennsylvania and the National Coalition Against Censorship, have also called the policy a pathway to book banning.

…

One election away from a nightmare

Start planning your vote now

This is way too important to let it slide.

On November 8th, less than 4 months from now, PA could elect leaders to dash the hopes of all of us that think PA is still a purple state and those of us that believe in our democracy.

We have a chance to elect Josh Shapiro as our Governor. Here’s why we need Josh Shapiro to be our next Governor! Josh Shapiro will protect:

  • Voting Rights

  • Women's Right to Choose

  • Public Education

  • Worker's Rights

  • LGBQT+ Rights

  • Our Environment

Josh Shapiro is intent on improving our lot, planning for a better future.

Doug Mastriano is bad for PA and a nightmare for democracy.

Doug Mastriano as our next governor will appoint a PA Secretary of State that will work to throw out legitimate Democratic votes—it’s what he fought for after the 2020 election. On top of that, he will use the specious “independent legislature” myth to allow our Republican-controlled legislature to determine the outcome regardless of the popular vote.

Mastriano will green light all of the bad policy bills that Republicans in the state legislature have been spewing out . Only a Josh Shapiro veto pen can save us.