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May 11, 2023

Filing in Andrew Burgess lawsuit gives new details about suspension

A Central Bucks middle school teacher who is suing the district for retaliation

A Central Bucks middle school teacher who is suing the district for retaliation has been "indefinitely suspended" with pay, according to information in a recent court filing involving his lawsuit.

The filing offered new details into the allegations made by Andrew Burgess, who contends the district and its Superintendent Abram Lucabaugh have engaged in a yearlong campaign of retaliation against him as a result of his advocacy on behalf of LGBTQ+ students.

The document is the first confirmation that Burgess has been suspended from his job as a seventh-grade social studies teacher at Unami Middle School since April 21, the day after a public presentation of an internal investigation into allegations of LGBTQ+ discrimination in the district, which largely blamed Burgess for ongoing divisions in the community.

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In the filings, Burgess and his attorneys, who include the ACLU of Pennsylvania, contend the district has continued to subject Burgess to additional, unspecified "retaliatory actions" since he filed his lawsuit April 11. Those actions included one taken last summer, "which is currently confidential," the document said.

Burgess alleges the district and Duane Morris LLP attorney and lead investigator Michael Rinaldi made false accusations against him at the April 20 presentation and report.

The internal investigation concluded there is no evidence of widespread, systemic discrimination against LGBTQ+ students in the district, administration properly handles bullying complaints, and alleged that Burgess, and others. manufactured the controversy in an attempt to derail efforts of a new Republican-majority school board whose policies they disagreed with.

The report found the district was justified in its initial suspension of Burgess in May 2022, and recommended suspending him a second time without pay, which he alleges formed the basis for his current suspension.

The Duane Morris investigation accused Burgess of manipulating students, including one who is transgender, into filing a federal discrimination complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights last year.

Burgess contends he filed the complaint with OCR at the request of the student and their parent, and that the student did not want Burgess to report the incidents to the district, which was aware of many of the incidents, according to the lawsuit.

The latest filing alleges investigators never interviewed the student who Burgess filed the complaint for and attorneys anticipate producing testimony at trial from the student and his family specifically refuting the "false narrative" in the district report.

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The district presentation and report are cited as an example of retaliation against Burgess, according to the filing which noted it was "devoted mostly to demonizing Mr. Burgess, and blaming him and other teachers, for supposedly fomenting a false and negative narrative about the district's treatment of LGBTQ+ students."

The district maintains that Burgess, who is also the teacher union vice president, was suspended with pay for three months last year for allegedly violating district policy and failing to report bullying allegations to administrators and interfering with district efforts to review the appropriateness of "certain" books in classroom libraries.

His suspension resulted in four days of student protests at Lenape Middle School where Burgess worked for 14 years before he was involuntarily transferred last August to Unami. After his suspension, Burgess filed a second complaint with OCR alleging retaliation.

His attorneys stated that Burgess will seek discovery material related to the school board and Lucabaugh's alleged retaliatory treatment of his, which he claims is "still unfolding," and the reasons for the mistreatment.

Those documents include records related to its investigation of the two OCR complaints that Burgess filed, internal communications among "district decisionmakers," and information related to the application of district policies to other teachers.

Burgess’ attorneys anticipate the district will attempt to resist some discovery requests by arguing that the "investigation" conducted by the school district's hired law firm was privileged.

"Whatever privilege may have formerly been claimed by the school district regarding the ‘investigation,’ the school district unquestionably and very publicly waived that privilege through its multi-hour public presentation and extensive ‘report’ that the school district published (and still publishes) on its website," the filing said.

The filing contends the district has asserted that any matters involving the OCR complaint and the district's "independent" internal investigation as a result of those complaints, are not "relevant" to the Burgess lawsuit.

"Defendants’ position is that this report is irrelevant to the claims and defenses of this First Amendment claim and should be precluded from discovery as distracting and a wasteful (sic) of time and resources," the filing said.

The Central Bucks School District, Pennsylvania's third largest district, has been embroiled in controversy for nearly two years over allegations that its newly enacted policies have negatively impacted LGBTQ+ students and other marginalized groups.

Board majority and their supporters have denied their actions are anti-LGBTQ+ and blamed the discord in the community on misinformation spread by community "activists."

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