We call on the Central Bucks School District to expand support and learning to give educational equity to ALL kids.

Central Bucks has at hand measures that will create a safer and more inclusive school climate, that cost very little and do no harm. These are obvious, doable, research-based practices that many other districts have put in place and proven they work.

Instead, Central Buck’s has enacted a number of policies that: 

• Pave the way to remove good books from our libraries

• Chill discussion in the classroom

• Accuse teachers of vague malfeasance

• Leave our most vulnerable students unprotected

• Allow parents to insert themselves into educational decisions of other families

• Create a climate of paranoia in our community

It is crucially important that those of us who believe in inclusive education—in other words, an outstanding education for ALL our students—attend the school board meetings to voice our concerns.

We call on CBSD to enact the following policy:

• Restore safe and inclusive learning environments by allowing employees to post in their classrooms, offices, or halls a rainbow flag or other sign of support for LGBTQ students or staff, because these are established symbols of inclusion and support that will help our kids. These can help marginalized kids feel safe, supported, and ready to learn.

• Uphold students’ right to use their requested names and pronouns. Establish a comprehensive school policy that carefully balances both the protection of a student's right to privacy in instances where they express concern for their safety and encourages parental input when the student consents.

• Update CB's Equal Opportunity/Non-Discrimination policy to include gender identity and gender expression.

• Repeal policy 109.2 which is so out of the norm that it allows for the easy removal of books, and replace with it with a standard library policy that balances each family’s unquestioned right to guide their own children’s reading with every other family’s right for their kid to read high quality, age-appropriate literature freely and according to their interests.

• Repeal policy 321, which creates more fear than guidance, as we saw in the debacle over Elie Weisel, and instead create Best Practices and in-service workshops for teachers to share their methods of keeping balance in classroom discussion and protecting all kids’ right to think for themselves.

• Teaching that allows for the discussion and study of age-appropriate political, social, and cultural issues as they arise without fear of retribution. Policies aimed at “neutrality” and “balance” with strict adherence to curriculum on certain topics chill teachers’ ability to foster deeper learning opportunities.

• Reliance on the expertise of our professional educators and nationally researched best practices in lieu of private policy collaborations with partisan law firms.

• Books in the library that support the journey of EVERY child.

• A library policy that includes the evaluation of a book as a whole.

• A transparent book reconsideration process that includes the publication of all committee comments.

We call on CBSD to enact the following training:

• Provide professional development and training specific to anti-LGBTQ bullying and harassment, so that all district employees are trained how to recognize, respond.

• Hire more mental health counselors.

• Anti-bullying trainings for teachers and other staff.

• Anti-bullying programs for students.

• Trainings to help staff recognize and prevent sexual abuse of children
  (Per July SB meeting: CBSD working with NOVA Bucks (Network of Victims Assistance) to help teach students about personal safety, including appropriate boundaries, communication and inappropriate contact. The district will also include training through NOVA for administration, teachers and staff.)

• Hire a Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging who can help guide and facilitate challenging conversations about race and gender so we can achieve a greater understanding about how to help more kids thrive in school. This would include any group that parents believe are experiencing marginalization, including religious kids.

• Join Delaware Valley Consortium for Excellence & Equity (DVCEE) to learn how to ensure that all students have equitable opportunities.

• Implement PA Department of Ed Culturally-Relevant Learning standards that bring real world experiences into the classroom.