The Signal | Fighting for Students’ and Teachers’ Rights in Central Bucks School District, with ACLU’s Witold Walczak

Central Bucks is under fire for allegedly creating a toxic environment for LGBTQ+ students, vindictively targeting a teacher, and spending more than $1 million for reputation laundering. 

Witold Walczak is legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania. Today I speak with him about the ACLU’s ongoing legal battles with Central Bucks School District, its latest complaint filed in court which charges the Republican-run district with illegally retaliating against a teacher for supporting a trans student, and Central Bucks’s million dollar disinformation campaign to avoid responsibility for creating a toxic, discriminatory environment for LGBTQ+ students – a charge currently being investigated by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.  

Full transcript of the episode available HERE.

Host Cyril Mychalejko’s 5 Book Recommendations to Further Shine a Light on the Issue

1. The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children, by Katherine Stewart
2. A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School, by Jennifer Berkshire
3. Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization, by Maurice Cunningham
4. Whose America?: Culture Wars in the Public Schools, by Jonathan Zimmerman
5.  The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, by Jeff Sharlet

ORGANIZATIONS

• Advocates for Inclusive Education (Bucks County)
• Central Bucks Neighbors United
• The Network for Public Education
• PFLAG

ALSO LISTEN TO: 

• EPISODE 2 – The Merchants of Deception: The Dark Money and Front Groups Behind School Privatization, with Maurice Cunningham
• EPISODE 6 – The Right’s Long War On Public Education, With Jennifer Berkshire
• EPISODE 7 – Understanding Backlash Politics And Religious Conservatives Inciting School Board Wars, With PRRI’s Melissa Deckman
• EPISODE 10 – Raising A Transgender Child In An Increasingly Transphobic Country, With Brett Freeman
• EPISODE 11 – Unmasking Moms For Liberty’s Extremism, With Olivia Little And Diana Leygerman