Central Bucks investigation into alleged LGBTQ student discrimination is out. What it says

An estimated  $1 million internal investigation into ACLU allegations that Central Bucks School District is a hostile environment for LGBTQ+ students found no evidence that the district has discriminated against those students and staff.

In a two hour presentation Thursday an attorney who led the investigation largely blamed the current U.S. Education’s Office of Civil Rights investigation into the district on the actions of a middle-school teacher who is suing the district and its superintendent for alleged retaliation.

As part of his recommendations, Duane Morris attorney Michael Rinaldi said the district should suspend former Lenape Middle School teacher Andrew Burgess again and without pay.

“By his conduct Mr. Burgess has demonstrated that he currently should not be entrusted with the care or education of children,” according to the 157-page report, which school board members received a few hours before the start of the meeting.

Burgess, a social studies teacher and teacher union vice president, was suspended with pay for three months last year after he says the district learned he helped a bullied LGBTQ student file a complaint with the OCR.

This school year Burgess was transferred to Unami Middle School, where he is teaching a different grade and more students, which he alleges is among the district’s retaliatory actions taken against him detailed in his lawsuit filed earlier this month.

The ACLU issued a statement following the Thursday night meeting calling the district’s probe “a dishonest investigation from the beginning," and called it an attempt by the board majority "to defend the status quo, and that is exactly what the report does."

“This was a political defense of the district’s discriminatory practices, not an unbiased investigation into the ACLU’s allegations that the district maintains a hostile environment for LGBTQ+ students that violates federal civil rights laws,” said Witold Walczak, legal director for the ACLU of Pennsylvania.

Walczak added that the ACLU expects when the federal OCR investigation concludes that it will find Central Bucks is “systematically and intentionally violating students’ civil rights.”

The ACLU has alleged that LGBTQ students have faced worsening treatment in the district as a result of “homophobic and transphobic” actions taken by the Republican-majority board who took control last year and upper level administrators.

In recent months, LGBTQ students and their allies have appeared at school board meetings and claimed the district has ignored their concerns, denounced a board policy banning Pride flags as political symbols and complained that they feel unsafe at school.

During public comment Thursday,  Lily Freedman, a transgender student, recounted how she and other LGBTQ students met with Superintendent Abram Lucabaugh last year and told him about their experiences of discrimination and harassment.

The superintendent promised to talk to the board and not sweep the matter under the rug. But nothing has changed, she said.

Lily’s mother, Mindy Freedman, added that she has asked for help, reported mistreatment to administration, wrote letters to the board and met with the director of pupil services, but nothing has improved.

“Whatever the findings of this report today, our family knows the truth,” Freedman said. “Because we are the truth.”

Did "activists" pushed "false narratives" to intimidate Central Bucks school board majority?

District officials denied accusations that recently enacted policies and actions are anti-LGBTQ+ or an attempt at silencing students and their allies.  They maintain the district has  “zero tolerance” for discrimination, harassment and bullying.

In his presentation, Rinaldi alleged that Burgess and community “activists” who were also unhappy with the newly elected Republican-majority school board and its direction, pushed a “false narrative” in an attempt to derail policies they disagreed with.

“The evidence and circumstances suggest that Mr. Burgess believed that, if he brought to light supposed widespread unaddressed bullying and harassment of LGBTQ students and convinced a federal agency to investigate such matters, the school board would cave to the inevitable criticism and bad press,” Rinaldi said.

But the three-month investigation found no evidence supporting the allegations that the school district is “awash in anti-LGBTQ bullying, harassment or discrimination or that the district has allowed such behavior to persist,” Rinaldi said.

Principals and other staff responded appropriately to allegations of bullying, threats and harassment, but there is “very little, if any, alleged bullying targeting LGBTQ students,” and the district has formal and informal processes to address it which comply with state and federal law, he said.

The Duane Morris investigation was based on 45 interviews including the 23 district principals, Burgess, teachers, guidance counselors, an LGBTQ student club moderator, the founder of the Rainbow Room, and the mother of the student on whose behalf Burgess filed the OCR complaint.

The investigation also included a review of more than 123,000 documents and electronic records including social media and emails, Rinaldi said.

None of the seven LGBTQ students or their families in the ACLU complaint were interviewed by the district's investigators. Rinaldi said the ACLU and OCR refused to provide the district an unredacted copy of the complaint including the student names.

The investigators also did not review copies of the four active complaints because the OCR has only provided summaries of the allegations, Rinaldi said.

Special CBSD School Board Meeting April 20 2023 from Central Bucks School District on Vimeo.

For most of his two-hour presentation Rinaldi focused on discrediting Burgess and his version of the events surrounding his suspension and allegations of district retaliation, which formed the basis for two of the four OCR complaints.

Rinaldi said that the investigation showed Burgess directed an LGBTQ student to only report alleged bullying and harassment he experienced to him, and told the boy and his mother the administration would not help.

The incidents that Burgess collected and recorded from the boy occurred in 2021 and early 2022, and involved a dozen Lenape students, according to emails. The information was used to create a complaint to the OCR filed in 2022, and the conduct was never reported to administration, Rinaldi said.

Burgess also allegedly received additional reports of LGBTQ student mistreatment from parents and he failed to report those to administration.

His suspension was based on Burgess’ failure to make those reports to administrators a violation of district policy, and using his union position to interfere between teachers and the school principal over district efforts to review the appropriateness of “certain” books in classroom libraries, Rinaldi said the investigation found.

Was Central Bucks internal investigation a "$1 million PR stunt?"

Rinaldi also accused board member Karen Smith of  “instigating” the OCR investigation last July when she sent an email to the U.S. Secretary and Education and OCR head expressing concerns that the board actions were negatively impacting LGBTQ students.

The Republican board members claimed they did not know Smith had written to the agency about her concerns and expressed anger that she did not inform the rest of the board.

“I am deeply disturbed that Mrs. Smith seems to be the reason some of these complaints have been investigated,” Board President Dana Hunter said.

Smith thanked Rinaldi for sharing her email and added that she never received a response from either the U.S. Department of Education or OCR about the concerns she raised.

Rinaldi also accused Marlene Pray, founder of the Rainbow Room, an LGBTQ+ program for young people located in Doylestown, of conspiring with Burgess to organize a four-day walk-out protest at Lenape and filing a separate complaint with OCR about bullying allegations.

Rinaldi also said there was no evidence the district engaged in sex discrimination and retaliation against LGBTQ students who walked out during protests about Burgess’ suspension to reenter Lenape Middle School, as alleged in one of the complaints.

The students alleged they were not allowed back into the building, but the investigation found the students were told they had to follow security protocol and enter through the front door and check in at the front office, Rinaldi said.

During public comment before the presentation, Pray, who was interviewed for the investigation, called the probe a “$1 million PR stunt” that was never intended to be impartial.

“The board got what it paid for,” she said.

More Central Bucks School news Concerns cited in Central Bucks' 61 book challenges fall outside policy. We have the files

Did CBSD board member use Nazi slur? Did Central Bucks board member call superintendent, colleague Nazis. What the email says

CBSD teacher sues alleges retaliation Central Bucks teacher alleges suspension, retaliation for standing up for LGBTQ students

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Central Bucks investigation finds no LGBTQ discrimination, but others raise questions