Imagine you're a CBSD school board member and you have $180,000 to spend. Do you:
(a) Hire a new teacher and expand professional development
(b) Invest in classroom technology
(c) Fund greener building and transportation initiatives
OR…(d) Spend taxpayer dollars on public relations consultants to spin the damaging, xenophobic, racist, and amateurish policies you and your colleagues have been stumbling over each other to inflict on children?
From the Bucks County Herald:
CB School Board partners with PR firm to improve community relations
By Maximilian Driks
Posted Thursday, August 4, 2022 12:03 am
The Central Bucks School Board voted at its July 26 meeting to hire the firm Devine + Partners in an attempt to repair strained public relations and improve the school district’s image.
Doing so will cost the district approximately $15,000 per month, or $180,000 per year, plus any out-of-pocket costs that will be billed separately.
“As with many school systems across the country, the Central Bucks School District has been a microcosm of the kind of combative rhetoric that has divided communities in recent years,” said Devine + Partners in their June communications proposal to CBSD.
“Controversies come and go. They are part of running any school system, let alone the state’s third-largest district. But the academics, activities, innovation, and achievements, as well as the standards, inclusive values, and commitment undergirding them are permanent characteristics of CBSD and its people, from the youngest learners to the adults guiding their educational experiences.”
The controversies that Devine + Partners were hired to address are a series of executive decisions made by the Central Bucks School District, most of which appear targeted towards the LGBTQ+ student body. This includes the removal of Pride Flags in the classroom, under the justification that they were political symbols, and as such, not fit for the classroom. It also includes only allowing students to attend Human Growth and Development classes that matched with their assigned genders at birth, and pausing said classes shortly after they began, effectively outing these students to their teachers and peers.….
Just a thought: perhaps they wouldn’t have to waste tax payer dollars if they didn’t make terrible decisions to satisfy a radical minority.