Central Bucks superintendent calls for civility ‘to restore what has been eroded’ amid intense debate

Responding to the “chaos” surrounding his district as it faces allegations of anti-LGBTQ bias, and backlash over its bans on teacher advocacy and content in library books, Central Bucks Superintendent Abram Lucabaugh called on community members Tuesday to “see one another as fellow human beings” and model civil behavior for students.

“I am asking for your support to restore what has been eroded,” Lucabaugh wrote in a message to the district community.

“Disagreeing shouldn’t equate to disdain for those who think or live differently,” he said. “Rather than fighting to normalize our own perspectives, we need a hard reset and focus on providing all students with the knowledge and competencies they will need to solve the mounting issues plaguing society.”

It’s not the first time Lucabaugh, who was appointed as superintendent in September 2021, has sent out a community-wide missive to discuss the climate around school board issues. Last May, he and board president Dana Hunter said that conversation about the district had been “rife with untruths, conjecture, and incomplete information, all of which is becoming untenable.”

Central Bucks has been at the center of intense debate since the pandemic. In the aftermath of a heated election that cemented the board’s Republican majority, arguments over masking have been replaced by controversies over the district’s treatment of LGBTQ students and new rules outlawing “sexualized content” in library books and barring teachers from advocating “political, partisan, or social policy issues” in classrooms.

A federal complaint filed in October by the American Civil Liberties Union accused the district of creating a “hostile environment” for LGBTQ students, including by ordering the removal of Pride flags from classrooms; proposing changes to library policies after community criticism surrounding LGBTQ-themed books; and requiring teachers to call students by their names and pronouns in the district’s database, unless students had parental permission for changes.

The district hired a team from the Duane Morris law firm helmed by former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain to address the allegations. A district administrator said last week she expects the firm to bill more than $1 million. A public relations firm also hired last year, Devine+Partners, billed a reported $144,000 before cutting ties with the district last month due to “targeted harassment” from community members, according to the district.

Lucabaugh — who drew criticism last year for likening Pride flags to political symbols — said Tuesday that “the rhetoric that we are anti-LGBTQ, that we create hostile environments for marginalized students, and that we don’t value and support all kids is incredibly discouraging to the thousands of employees in this district, and even more so for the 18,000 students they serve.”

While Lucabaugh said he has been asked to call out injustice or risk being on the wrong side of history, “doing that only furthers the rhetoric that CBSD is a breeding ground for injustice, intolerance, and fear, which we are not.”

Instead, he called for encouraging students to learn how to engage in conversation rather than “pushing one specific worldview,” and teaching them that “variance in opinion doesn’t have to result in cancellation.”

“We need to abandon all the political and social ideology in favor of a rigorous and robust high-quality education that gives every child in our district a solid foundation for life,” he said.

Lucabaugh also shared “myths and facts” about the policies that have garnered controversy — saying, for instance, it was a myth that the district’s library policy bans books. Instead, it “requires books to be free of sexually explicit content and graphic depictions of explicit sexual content.”

Since the adoption of rules implementing the policy, more than 60 books have been challenged, according to district employees.

Before community members had filed any challenges, Lucabaugh said in January that the district had already decided to review five books due to its responsibility “to guard against the sexualization of children.”