New Democrat-led school board in Central Bucks takes control
First actions include reversing policies on books and transgender athletes
The new Democrat-led school board in Central Bucks started its first night at the helm with some sweeping changes on Monday.
The Dec. 4 reorganization meeting was both a swearing-in ceremony for the newly elected school board members and the first regular meeting for a board eager to reverse some recent and lingering decisions by the GOP-controlled body before it.
Among the first actions of the new board Monday were the hiring of a new solicitor, cutting back four controversial policies and starting a legal review of the more than $700,000 severance package for its outgoing superintendent approved just a few weeks earlier by the lameduck board.
Here’s a breakdown of everything you need to know about Monday’s meeting.
New Central Bucks School Board leadership
Reorganization meetings are held annually to allow the board to name a new president and vice president, set meeting dates and take care of a few other general housekeeping items.
During municipal election years, they also serve as the swearing in ceremonies for incoming members.
Dana Foley, Heather Reynolds, Susan Gibson, Rick Haring joined the board along with Karen Smith, who won her re-election bid Nov. 7. Results for Smith, Foley and Reynolds were also recently upheld in a recount completed last Friday.
Along with sitting Democrat Dr. Mariam Mahmud, the new members joined Republicans Debra Cannon, James Pepper and Lisa Sciscio on Monday.
Smith and Mahmud, the two senior majority members, were named president and vice president in two respective votes. A 7-2 vote for Smith as president, with Pepper and Sciscio opposed, and an 8-1 vote for Mahmud, Pepper being the lone dissenter.
“Thank you for your trust in me. I do not take this hand lightly. I feel it as a very heavy responsibility and you have my word, I will do my best for everyone,” Smith said. “To my supporters, I am so very thankful. To those of you who have challenged me, I will do all I can to hear your voices and concerns.”
Mahmud described the past few years as “challenging at best” for some students and staff in Central Bucks.
“I acknowledge the hardship and distress faced by our staff, administration and teachers during the last few years. I will work hard to make this a place that supports each of you,” Mahmud said.
A new solicitor appointed in Central Bucks
Monday’s agenda was missing a few items that the incoming majority had requested of the outgoing board’s leadership.
One of those items included the naming of a new solicitor to replace Jeffrey Garton, who announced his resignation from the board during the Nov. 14 school board meeting.
David Conn, a partner at Sweet, Stevens, Katz & Williams LLP, was appointed to serve as the district’s new solicitor in a 6-3 vote, a party-line split.
Ex-superintendent Lucabaugh’s severance to be reviewed
In a somewhat surprising moment of unity, the nine-member board voted unanimously to start a legal challenge to a more than $700,000 severance package awarded to former Superintendent Abram Lucabaugh.
Lucabaugh’s severance agreement came as a surprise addition to the Nov. 14 meeting agenda, added late the day before without legal review from Garton or members of the administration.
A letter from Curtin Heffner attorney Brendan Flynn to Garton before last month’s meeting raised potential legal issues with the severance, including that it runs afoul of a 2012 change to the state school code.
Flynn’s letter said the severance is more than double what the state would allow.
While Cannon, Pepper and Sciscio voted in favor of the severance agreement last month, the three seemed agreeable to taking another look at it Monday.
Pepper, himself an attorney, said that he, like others in the district, did not do a thorough legal analysis of the rushed agreement last month.
Duane Morris bill will be paid
The board begrudgingly approved a $1.14 million bill for legal services Duane Morris LLP on Monday after board members ultimately decided they were legally required by the terms of an existing agreement to pay.
The high-profile Philadelphia firm was hired by the board last November in a 6-3 vote to investigate four discrimination complaints filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. The contract with the firm was added to the agenda the day before the meeting where it was voted on.
Among those complaints were the claims that Central Bucks violated the civil rights of LGBTQ students and their supporters in a complaint filed last October by the ACLU of Pennsylvania on behalf of seven LGBTQ students.
The Bucks County
Courier Times reported last week that school officials confirmed that the district’s insurance will only cover about $250,000 of an estimated $1.75 million total bill.
The board voted 9-0 approving the entire bills list Monday, another rare unanimous vote involving a controversial issue.
Freezing transgender, library and advocacy policies in Central Bucks
In more of a return to form, the board voted 6-3 to freeze four policies that have garnered the most controversy over the past couple of years.
The vote effectively freezes two policies related to library books passed in 2022, a policy that banned pride flag displays passed in January and a sports policy restricting transgender athletes that passed during the same contentious meeting as Lucabaugh’s severance on Nov. 14.
Policy 109.1 and 109.2 took aim at “sexually explicit” library materials and gave any resident of the district a wide berth to challenge books on library shelves.
Policy 321 was lauded by supporters as a “neutrality” policy to fight “indoctrination” by teachers, but instead raised free speech concerns over its broad language and what constituted “political commentary” under the new rules.
Policy 123.3, describing “Sex-Based Distinctions in Athletics,” was an attempt to make sure students were playing on the same team as their sex assigned at birth, largely in the name of “protecting girls sports” by supporters.
All of the policies that were overturned Monday night were in some way developed, recommended or suggested by the Independence Law Center, a religious liberties law firm and legal arm Pennsylvania Family Institute.
While the extent of their work in Central Bucks is not entirely known, Monday’s vote does seem to close the door on that relationship moving forward.