Central Bucks, outside public relations firm parting ways

School district says company has faced ‘targeted harassment’ due to association

Central Bucks School District and its $15,000-a-month outside public relations agency have parted ways, with the district saying the firm has faced “targeted harassment” as a result of its association with the district.

The dissolving of the relationship with Devine Partners was announced Thursday in a community message posted on the district’s webpage.

The school board voted 6-3 last July to hire Devine amid growing national media attention over controversial administrative and school board decisions that some say appeared to target LGBTQ+ students and their supporters.

In the message posted Thursday the district said it had learned a group of community members have engaged in “targeted harassment” of several clients and staff members of Devine Partners. The message described the threats as “at best caustic and at worst malicious and false.”

“Understandably, these actions have created much turmoil for Devine Partners,” the message said. “Throughout this emerging situation, Devine Partners has maintained transparency with the district about the implications they are facing in the wake of these attacks.”

The district’s message did not say if the parting was effective immediately.

Kevin Shinkle, senior vice president and chief content officer for Devine, on Thursday did not answer questions about the harassment allegation.

“The statement speaks for itself and we have nothing more to add,” Shinkle said in an email.

CBSD spokesperson Angela Linch did not respond to an email seeking answers to questions Thursday. Linch is the director of communications and community relations, but the district also hired

Devine.

Central Bucks School Board member Karen Smith, who was among those voting against hiring Devine, said the board majority has wasted time and resources on “exclusionary policies to fix nonexistent problems.”

“Instead of blaming others and continuing on this ill-fated trajectory, the board majority should return focus to our students and staff and the real work of the district,” she said Thursday.

At school board meetings over the last seven months teachers, students and community members have called the hiring of Devine Partners an unnecessary waste of taxpayer money and an attempt by the board to do damage control because of its poor decisions.

CBSD has an internal communications department but hired Devine to assist and manage increased media requests for information, as well as developing content and upgrading the district’s website and providing “consultation” regarding the restructuring of the district’s internal communications department.

The firm also handled all media requests involving a policy restricting the sexual content of library books and another policy banning partisan political and social issues classroom displays unrelated to curriculum

Community members believe both policies target primarily LGBTQ+ students and supporters

The district has come under fire over the last 18 months for other actions deemed as discriminatory against transgender students, including requiring students attend human growth and development classes that matched their assigned gender at birth and directing teachers to notify guidance counselors if a student wants to be called by a different name or pronoun so parents can be notified.

Last year the ACLU of Pennsylvania requested the civil rights divisions of two federal agencies investigate the Central Bucks School District for what it has called policies and practices that have created and exacerbated “hostile” and “toxic” educational environment for its LGBTQ+ students.