Ex-Central Bucks VP admits 'extensive' work with conservative advocates while on board

A former Central Bucks school board member is working with a nonprofit aimed at training conservative activists where she admits having “worked extensively” with two religious groups that have previously had murky ties to the district.

Leigh Vlasblom, former vice president of the Republican-led school board, lists her work with the PA Family Institute and the Independence Law Center (ILC) in her work experience on the staff directory page of The Leadership Institute, where she is now listed as a “school board trainer/researcher.”

“While serving on the Central Bucks School Board … Leigh has worked extensively with PA Family Institute, Independence Law (Center), Keeping Kids in School PAC, Hope 4 PA, and Bucks Families for Leadership,” Vlasbloms’ entry states.

This news organization has reported extensively on ILC’s influence in a growing number of school districts across the state, where the religious liberty law firm offers free drafts of policies aimed at reforming school libraries, adding sex-based distinctions to athletics teams and governing who can use which gendered bathroom.

More on ILC influence in PA schools: Libraries to locker rooms: How a religious law firm is changing PA school policies

Like its parent organization, PA Family, ILC’s policy suggestions often take aim at topics affecting LGBTQ students and national culture war issues.

PA Family is considered by the Family Research Council, which is designated an anti-LGTBQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, as a one of 38 state policy councils that “accomplish at the state level what Family Research Council does at the national level — shape public debate and formulate public policy.”

Why does Leigh Vlasblom's resume matter?

Vlasblom’s description of an “extensive” working relationship with ILC and PA Family suggests a possibly deeper connection with the previous school board in a relationship that has been less than transparent to the public.

This is possibly the first time Vlasblom, who didn’t seek re-election in 2023, has publicly linked herself to either of the two Pennsylvania groups outside of general references to “the board.” While on the board, she never publicly disclosed any working relationship witht he groups.

This news organization first reported last January that ILC had drafted regulations for a library policy passed almost six months earlier.

The library policy faced harsh criticism the months before and after its passage because of its focus on sex or “implied” depictions of nudity, with free speech advocates like the ACLU of Pennsylvania and Education Law Center warning legal action on First Amendment grounds.

About 30 minutes prior to that story publishing, the district responded to a series of emailed questions in the form of a public statement that acknowledged the board had asked ILC to do a free legal review of that one document.

The USA Today Network soon after requested a year’s worth of emails or text messages from school officials in multiple districts across the state, including Central Bucks.

Documents from those Right to Know Law requests revealed last June that Central Bucks had been working with ILC to also draft a new athletics policy adding sex-based distinctions to school sports teams as far back as early November 2022.

Around the same time as that story, Reuters reported that former school board President Dana Hunter confirmed that ILC helped draft the library policy, which would mean a working relationship that dates back several months further.

The records also showed that an ILC attorney, Jeremy Samek, who drafted the library policy regulations, also advised former Superintendent Abram Lucabaugh on a state court ruling around parental consent in LGBTQ lesson plans saying it could “support your practice of involving parents in the name/pronoun decision.”

Samek also suggests that language in the opinion might bolster another district policy aimed at removing political symbols and "indoctrination" from the classroom. It's interestingly the also the only policy that appears to have any direct connection to Vlasblom.

Vlasblom introduced Policy 321, originally titled "Political, Sociopolitical, and Other Related Communications," at a September 2022 policy committee meeting, producing a draft policy at the meeting that was unlike any other drafts already included on the night's agenda.

The minority board members on the committee asked where the draft came from, but Vlasblom said it was the product of notes she collected from discussions with other committee members and “some other areas.”

Policy 321 was seen as the codification of an administrative rule to ban "political symbols" that Lucabaugh was said to have issued back in May, a decision many community members felt was aimed specifically at Pride flags.

Central Bucks never produced any documents that directly linked ILC to Policy 321, but the language was extremely similar to the same numbered policy being considered in Pennridge about the same time that Vlasblom introduced it in her district.

That policy in Pennridge was developed with the help of ILC.

ILC didn't limit its involvement in Central Bucks to just policy review, attempting to branch out into aiding with litigation.

ILC offers contract to CBSD: Religious liberty law firm giving policy advice to Central Bucks. Why no contract exists

The ILC even offered a pro bono contract to aid the district in further policy review and assist any outside counsel with multiple U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights complaints — at least one of which was likely filed by the ACLU that October alleging the district created a toxic environment for LGBTQ students referencing some of the same policies ILC appears to helped with.

In other words, it is unknown the extent to which ILC was involved in Central Bucks policies, but the group undoubtedly played a pivotal role in a number of decisions that would later be directly or tangentially connected to myriad legal issues the current board now faces.

What is the Leadership Institute?

The Leadership Institute is a Virginia-based nonprofit political group founded in 1979 that offers conservatives with “training in campaigns, fundraising, grassroots organizing, youth politics, and communications,” according to the institute’s website.

The institute boasts over 50 types of training schools and seminars, a free employment placement service and a national program aimed at training college students to organize campus groups.

Among its estimated 250,000 “conservative activists, leaders and students,” the group also counts in its alumni and guest speakers former Vice President Mike Pence and Republican strategist and American Tax Reform founder Grover Norquist.

PA schools lack transgender policies: Only a handful of Pa. school districts have policies protecting trans students

The institute’s founder and current president, Malcolm Blackwell, has a long and storied political career. He served intermittently as the executive director of the College Republican National Committee between 1965 to 1970; he oversaw the national youth effort for Ronald Regan’s first presidential campaign in 1980; and Blackwell is currently part of the Republican National Convention’s Standing Committee on Rules.

The institute raised about $39.2 million in 2022, roughly $15.6 million more than it raised in 2020 and more than 2.5 times its reported revenue in 2016, according to ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer.

Vlasblom is listed as one of six members of the institute’s “School Board Leadership Program,” which was at one point headed up by former Moms For Liberty founder Bridget Ziegler before a sex scandal rocked the national Moms group in December 2023.

The Leadership Institute announced a formal partnership with Moms For Liberty in June 2022, the institute’s training resources lauded as a potentially vital tool for the then-growing parents’ rights group.

It’s unclear exactly when Vlasblom joined the institute, the former Central Bucks official didn’t respond to an email by this news organization as of Monday afternoon.

A Nov. 29 post on X, formerly Twitter, from a Leadership Institute account called LearnRight advertised a free live webinar on Dec. 4 with Vlasblom as the special guest speaker.

The institute’s upcoming training list includes five events in February and March related to “school boards,” including an in-person “School Board Campaigning 101” course on Feb. 17 in Sarasota, Florida, and an online training on Robert’s Rules of Order on March 26.

The training courses do not appear to list any specific speakers at this time.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Former Central Bucks official cites 'extensive' work with PA Family Institute