After first fighting ‘extremist’ policies in Bucks County, coalition launches to help school boards across the state

Community members worried about school board proposals to limit library books or police the participation of transgender students now have a statewide group to help fight those policies.

Pennsylvanians for Welcoming and Inclusive Schools (PA WInS), a coalition of advocacy groups including Education Voters PA, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, and the Education Law Center, initially formed in late 2022 to combat “extremist” board policies in Bucks County.

“We just really want people who are facing these issues to know they’re not alone,” said Susan Spicka, Education Voters’ executive director, who formally announced the coalition’s launch Tuesday.

While control of the Central Bucks school board and nearby Pennridge, another hotbed for debates around culture-war issues, flipped to Democrats after November’s elections, that wasn’t necessarily the case in other districts around Pennsylvania, Spicka said.

She pointed to actions this month by school districts in York County, including one that reinstated a Native American logo, and another moving to hire a law firm to defend removing gender identity from its Title IX protections.

“Clearly in some places, people who have an agenda that is not about supporting kids ... have been elected to school boards,” Spicka said, adding that in many districts, “it remains to be seen what this last election is going to mean.”

In anticipation of conflicts around policies, the coalition has set up a website that allows people to submit forms reporting incidents or requesting help regarding different issues, including attacks on diversity and inclusion initiatives, policy changes regarding LGBTQ+ students, censorship or book bans, and curriculum changes.

It also includes links to other entities, encouraging people to file complaints about discrimination with the U.S. Department of Education, for instance.

A federal civil rights investigation is ongoing against the Central Bucks district, following a 2022 complaint filed by the ACLU alleging anti-LGBTQ discrimination. An investigation by lawyers hired by the district concluded last year that there was no evidence of a hostile environment for LGBTQ students.

In November, the Education Law Center and University of Pennsylvania’s Advocacy for Racial and Civil Justice Clinic filed a federal complaint against the Pennridge School District, alleging failures to protect children of color and LGBTQ students from harassment.

Kristina Moon, senior attorney with the Education Law Center, said that while some of the recent school board election results were “very promising,” the legal group has been “seeing a really alarming number of districts considering” or implementing policies that exclude transgender students from equal participation in schools — including bathroom usage, sports team participation and recognition of names and pronouns.

Since 2021, the ELC has heard from people in 46 of Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts with concerns about book bans, censorship, or LGBTQ discrimination, Moon said.

“We expect it’s a far undercount,” Moon said, since “these are the only folks that have made it to us.”

The ELC provides resources about the legality of discriminatory policies so parents can be confident when they’re speaking in front of their school boards, or talking with other parents or students, Moon said. She anticipates sharing more of that information with, and providing possible legal support to, people who contact the inclusive schools coalition seeking help.

During a news conference Tuesday, advocates said there was power in banding together, even as some of the threats they’ve faced have receded.

“These little islands are just starting to connect,” said Patricia Jackson, a teacher in the Central York School District and member of the Panther Anti-Racist Union, which in 2021 protested, and successfully reversed, bans of hundreds of books in Central York.

Just because protesters succeeded doesn’t mean their opposition has given up, Jackson said.

“It’s important we raise our voices not only in times of tumult, but also in times of bliss,” she said. “The darkness has not faded.”