Democrats Took Over a Bucks County School Board, but Still Ban Some Books

For two years, the Republican Pennridge School Board, north of Philadelphia, governed with a burst of ideological energy. It instituted book bans and curriculum rewrites — the sort of politics pushed nationwide by Moms for Liberty, the conservative advocacy group allied with Donald J. Trump.

But in this closely divided community, the board’s moves created a backlash.

A slate of Democrats swept school board elections. They promised to put “Pennridge over politics” and end an era of drama and division for this community.

Still, a year later, the legacy of the district’s Moms for Liberty moment has not at all been undone.

Some removed books have been restored to library shelves, but others have not. Transgender students can use some bathrooms that align to their gender identities — but not all of them.

At least for now, teachers remain barred from displaying identity markers like rainbow flags. There has been no move to reinstate the diversity, equity and inclusion trainings and reading assignments that were canceled by the previous board.

“Change is very slow and almost not evident,” said Adrienne King, a parent activist.

It is unclear whether local disenchantment with Republican education policies will affect voters’ choices in the presidential race. The Pennridge district is in Bucks County, one of the most closely watched swing regions in the nation, and where both Mr. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, have spent time in recent days.

What is clear is that many Pennridge parents are exhausted with the political battles that inflamed communities nationwide during the Covid-19 pandemic. They have reached a new political equilibrium, where some changes have become part of the firmament of public education, especially the expectation that parents will have visibility into all that their children are learning and reading at school — and some measure of a veto.

“We’re all about transparency,” said Ron Wurz, the school board president, who was elected to the body as a Republican but ran for re-election as a Democrat after becoming disillusioned with the ideological fervor of his colleagues. “People were fed up with the controversy and the negativity.”

He pointed to the region’s split politics to argue that closing that chapter should not mean lurching — or even leaning — to the left.

“With any political movement,” he said, “if you go too far, the voters will pull you back.”

A Swing to the Right

During the pandemic and the racial justice protests that occurred after the death of George Floyd, Pennridge School Board meetings were thronged with hundreds of impassioned community members.

A mother argued that curriculum material referencing contemporary racial segregation was “inflammatory.” A high school junior said the district had provided her “little support” in coming to terms with her L.G.B.T.Q. identity. A father said serving abroad in the U.S. military had taught him “there is not oppression here.”

Some of the issues motivating the school board were similar to those that angered a cross-section of parents nationwide regardless of party affiliation, like pandemic school closures. But like conservative “parental rights” activists across the country, a new batch of Pennridge Republicans, elected in 2021, were especially interested in race, gender, sexuality and American history.

The board prohibited library books that included “age-inappropriate sexualized content.” About two dozen books were removed from the high school, including classics like “Beloved” by Toni Morrison and “The Cider House Rules” by John Irving.

Aubrie Schulz, 16, a junior at Pennridge High School, said she had been frustrated by the limited offerings in the high school library. But as adults argued over gender, sex and race, she noted that what occurred in the library or classroom had only a narrow effect on students.

“We can get all the information on our phones,” she said.

The school board also made other moves.

Transgender students were barred from bathrooms that corresponded to their gender identity. Teachers were warned against discussing the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (A board member at the time, Joan Cullen, said she had attended Mr. Trump’s speech in Washington that day.)

The board also reduced the number of social studies credits required to graduate, and hired a consultant, Jordan Adams, to review and rewrite curriculum. Mr. Adams had previously worked for Hillsdale College, which creates K-12 learning materials forged in the mold of classical Christian schools. His contract was a source of dissent on the board, even from some Republicans, who saw him as unvetted and inexperienced.

Several board members who supported efforts to change the curriculum either declined interview requests or did not respond.

For many teachers, Mr. Adams was the biggest affront. His curriculum replaced a required ninth-grade history class focused on the 19th century.

The new course emphasized civics and the American founding — content that is a priority for Republican policymakers nationwide, including Mr. Trump. One of the readings was John Adams’s 1798 letter to Massachusetts militia members, in which he argued that the U.S. Constitution was “made only for a moral and religious people.”

“Morale in the building was so low,” remembered Robert Cousineau, a veteran Pennridge High School social studies teacher and parent in the district. He applauded the focus on primary sources, but said the specific material was too “philosophical” for ninth graders.

Between 2022 and 2023, teacher resignations more than doubled in the district.

In an interview, Mr. Adams said educators often have “limited exposure” to research showing that young students are capable of handling a more rigorous curriculum, something he hoped to convince them of in training sessions.

In the end, Mr. Adams was not given the opportunity.

His hiring in particular had motivated many voters. John Karmazin, a 35-year-old industrial mechanic and father of two Pennridge elementary students, said his politics lean to the right. Nevertheless, he did not like the idea of outsourcing the development of curriculum to Mr. Adams for $125 per hour.

He said he and his wife had moved to the area in part because of the schools, and had been disappointed to see that “lo and behold, politics got in the way.”

In the fall of 2023, Democrats won a majority of seats on the school board. Ms. Cullen, who had attended the Trump rally, stepped down. Mr. Adams’s new curriculum was pulled halfway through the last academic year.

A New Board

In one of its early moves, the new Democratic majority, citing civil rights regulations from the Biden administration, revised the bathroom policy at the high school. One pair of bathrooms is now available for transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice.

Last month, the board adopted a new policy on library materials, removing language about gender and sex.

Still, the district’s superintendent, Angelo Berrios, has announced new book removals at the high school, including dozens of manga graphic novels — citing “explicit graphic displays of sexual acts” — and “Blue is the Warmest Color,” a French graphic novel about a first lesbian romance.

The books banned under the previous board were not automatically repurchased; instead, staff members reviewed them for “age-inappropriate” content. “Beloved” and five other books have returned to shelves. “The Cider House Rules,” which deals with themes of abortion, has not, along with 10 other works.

Mr. Wurz, the board president, promised to publish online all of the high school library’s acquisitions, allowing parents to peruse them and file complaints.

Not all of the new Democratic board members are happy about the continued scrutiny of library books.

“It’s perpetuating the idea that there is something for the community to be suspicious of when it comes to our librarians,” said Leah Foster Rash, a Democratic board member and district parent.

But conservative activists and school board members were not the only ones who wanted to examine the district’s reading lists. Latifah Jordan, an early childhood teacher, moved her family to Bucks County from Philadelphia in 2023, seeking to avoid gun violence, she said.

They did not have a positive experience.

Her daughter Laniya, 17, said that she repeatedly heard white students use a racial slur in school hallways, sometimes directed toward Black students like herself and her brother, Trequan, 15.

More than 80 percent of the school’s students are white; less than 3 percent are Black.

The siblings blamed, in part, a teacher’s handling of John Steinbeck’s novel “Of Mice and Men.” Trequan said his ninth-grade English teacher would allow students to say a racist word in full while reading the book aloud, and that the teacher had not discussed the word’s history or the pain it could cause.

Ms. Jordan said that no matter the book’s literary merit, it should not be taught.

“Why would you use this book in a school where there are Black children in an already hostile environment?” she asked.

Her family moved away. They joined with several others to file a federal civil rights complaint against the school system, accusing it of a pattern of race and gender-based discrimination and bullying.

Through a spokesman, Mr. Berrios, the superintendent, declined an interview request. In a statement, he said his administration’s focus “cannot be on revisiting past conflicts or engaging a dialogue centered on the politicization of public education.”

He said that slurs were not permitted, and that the district investigated all complaints reported to staff members.

Lauren Bradley, a parent who was active in the Democratic effort to bring change to the school board, acknowledged that the school system is under pressure from left-leaning parents, too.

“When my kids come home and talk about the Civil War, I want to know, ‘What are you learning about the Civil War?’” she said.

Mr. Karmazin, the father whose political views lean to the right, is pleased with the new political equilibrium.

He said he does not want any part of the nation’s past withheld from his first and second graders as they get older — “the good and the bad, the warts — everything.”

But he does want to know exactly what they are learning.

“Parents should be aware,” he said, “of everything.”