Tracy Suits and Steve Sullivan contributed to this article.
Revolutions don’t always begin with a specific spark, a grand speech, or a charismatic leader. Sometimes, they begin with a handful of frustrated parents realizing they must do something to save their district from a national political takeover.
In 2021, when the pandemic was ravaging our country, Central Bucks felt like the epicenter of the national political turmoil.
A newly elected Republican school board majority, which won by a mere 159 votes, ushered in a wave of sweeping policies that thrust one of Pennsylvania’s highest-performing school districts into the national spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
Local and national headlines focused on Policy 321, which restricted classroom advocacy displays and resulted in the removal of Pride flags from our schools and an Elie Wiesel quote from the library door. They covered Policy 121.1, which allowed any one person in our district to challenge any book in our school libraries, leading to more than 60 challenges and the removal of 2 books.
While it would have been easier to be keyboard warriors, our community decided we needed concrete action.
So, we organized.
CBSD Neighbors United was founded by the first slate of Democratic school board candidates and their small but mighty team of volunteers to fill a void that existed for school board elections. There was no roadmap, no millionaire donors, no political machine, just a shared belief that our schools, our teachers and staff, our kids, and our community deserve better.
None of us expected to become experts in strategy and messaging, operations and fundraising, campaign finance, school policy, nor crisis communications. Yet somehow we did. Mostly, because we had to. We had no choice. Our kids were hurting and our district was crumbling under the weight of bad policy and partisan politics.
Between November 2021 and February 2023, we strategized, we organized, and most importantly, we brought awareness to the community. We learned we didn’t have to be louder than those trying to hurt our schools, we just have to be better – and honest. We have to offer good leadership, good policy, good solutions, and good people.
CBSD Neighbors United was a revolution because thousands of neighbors chose hope over fear and community over division.
With a skeleton crew, we recruited hundreds of volunteers. People were eager to help flip the board. Our volunteers knocked on thousands of doors, researched policy and law, wrote postcards and op-eds, donated, and helped on individual campaigns. We spent countless nights and days on graphics, fact-checking, fundraising, and creating a grassroots movement without any support from millionaires or national Super PACs. We supported hard-working, exceptional candidates who won their elections and fulfilled their promises to the people of Central Bucks.
And we witnessed something truly extraordinary. We watched people who had never attended a school board meeting become public speakers and complete strangers become trusted colleagues. We saw people across the political aisle put aside their political differences because they realized we all shared something bigger: a belief that public education belongs to the entire community, to all of us.
When people ask how CBSD Neighbors United flipped the Board in 2023 and then finished its job with a 9-0 Democratic majority, we say it was about trust. The trust in a better future, trust in humanity, and trust that good will always prevail.
While the 2023 election changed the direction of our school district, change happened long before Election Day. It happened when hundreds of ordinary people decided they were the solution, they would fix the problem, they would make a difference.
And they did. We did.
The goal of CBSD Neighbors United was never to build a permanent political organization; it was to protect our public schools from outside partisan politics and cruelty. The goal was always to reclaim CBSD and put good people guided by reason, common sense and best education practices in charge. And our 9-0 Board is now full of good people.
So while CBSD Neighbors United is closing its doors, the movement we started lives on. What we built together will not disappear with a simple goodbye. The parents and grandparents who found their voices still have them. The students who learned what civic engagement looks like will continue to stand up for themselves and others. The volunteers who discovered how local democracy works will move forward and bring others along with them.
Over the last decade, we have all unfortunately learned democracy is not the default and strong public schools don’t happen by accident. Luckily, we also learned when a community refuses to surrender its public schools to division and fear, democracy has a remarkable way of finding its footing again.
CBSD Neighbors United was a revolution because thousands of neighbors chose hope over fear and community over division. We chose to fight, and this revolution was very much televised.
