As the Bucks County Courier Times continues their descent into becoming a far-left tabloid (think of them as our own local version of the Huffington Post), the falsehoods they publish must be corrected.

Our new “Correcting the Courier” series aims to counteract the Courier’s disappointing withdrawal from honest reporting.

The latest offense from the Courier, which is the inspiration for this “Correcting the Courier” series, is Chris Ullery’s misrepresentation of last week’s Central Bucks School Board meeting, where the board chose not to approve a 9th-grade field trip to Washington, D.C.

Mr. Ullery predicated his “journalism” — which was really an opinion piece — on a single tweet that went viral the day after the Board vote.

Before going any further, I want to let you know that the falsehoods spread through Diana Leygerman’s tweet (which we’ll discuss in a second) and Mr. Ullery’s article led to documented bullying within CBSD. We have received reports that a child of one of the CBSD Board directors was bullied this week specifically on this issue. Dishonest journalism has the potential to cause real harm to our community, and when this harm befalls children, it can no longer be ignored.

“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”

David Ogilvy (the “Father of Advertising”)

The original headline for Mr. Ullery’s article asserted two falsehoods, both of which will be addressed later in this article: 1) the trip was cancelled, and 2) the trip was specific to the Holocaust Museum. As you can see below, the headline was eventually changed two days later.

It’s important to address this issue with the headline before we get into anything else, because the headline is far more visible than any content found in the article itself. Changing the headline two days later was certainly called for, but by that time the damage was done. The community had been led to believe damaging falsehoods, all because of a lack of basic journalistic integrity on the part of the author and the overseeing editors.

While I would prefer to give the editors at the Courier the benefit of the doubt and say this was laziness, there is one other huge, glaring falsehood in the original headline that simply cannot be overlooked. That’s the omission of why the Board pulled the trip in the first place. By headlining that the trip was specifically to the Holocaust Museum, and then suggesting that the trip was just canceled for no particular reason, the reader is led to assume that the Board simply has something against the Holocaust Museum.

This particular tactic is extremely harmful to the community, and we will address it further later in this article.

The content of Mr. Ullery’s article (even after the headline change) asserts that the Tamanend Middle School field trip was cancelled, which would mean the Board decided that a previously-approved trip was no longer going to happen. From the article:

“Although the vote canceled the field trip, other places for an alternative visit, like New York City, were suggested for future consideration.”

Since this was the first time this particular field trip was ever put in front of the Board for approval, there was nothing to “cancel.” The Board simply decided not to approve this trip in its current form. A simple listen to the meeting archive shows that the entire Board and administration were in agreement that a trip would still take place, whether it be to a different location or the same location with different logistics (i.e. no segregation of students).

For reference as to what it would mean to “cancel” a field trip, consider an identical field trip for Tohickon Middle School that the Board approved last July. Since the Tohickon field trip was already approved, any action to stop it from happening would “cancel” it.

In the case of Tamanend Middle School, no such trip was ever approved, so there was nothing to cancel. Furthermore, it was obvious from the Board’s deliberation that a field trip for these students would still happen one way or another.

As they’ve done in the past, the Courier can’t help but try to insinuate that the Central Bucks Board majority is antisemitic. Perhaps this is a popular topic for their USA Today masters. We can only hypothesize.

The truth is that the “because-of-antisemitism” trope generates clicks, so irresponsible & intellectually-lazy “journalists” run with it. Never mind that the duly elected Board President Dana Hunter is herself Jewish. Never mind that Jamie Walker, one of the district’s most outspoken parent advocates, is Jewish. Never mind that Health Director Dr. David Damsker is also Jewish. Never mind that there has never been a shred of factual evidence presented to establish that the Board or the district in any way embraces antisemitism.

Furthermore, during the meeting, not a single word was spoken by either the Board or the administration about the Holocaust Museum in particular. Go ahead and double-check: the discussion is from 1:07:00 to 1:12:30. There was zero discussion of this destination specifically. The written motion was to approve the trip “to see the Smithsonian Museum, the Holocaust Museum and various memorials and monuments.” The language in the Field Trip Request provides the following list of curriculum items that will be experienced on the field trip: “both World Wars, the Korean Conflict, the Vietnam War, the Holocaust, the Civil Rights Movement, government structures, labor and industry, earth sciences, and evolution.“

Simple put, emphasizing the Holocaust Museum over any of those other visit locations is an obvious attempt to smear the Board. It’s beneath the dignity of real journalism.

As I discussed last week, Diana Leygerman was rejected by the community last year in her Region 9 loss to Jim Pepper, and now she seems fully committed to causing as much destruction and chaos as possible. Just days after losing the election, she expressed her desire to “burn it all down“, and that’s exactly what she has attempted to do since then.

The tweet that she sent out after the Board meeting, which Mr. Ullery then used as the basis for his Courier Time article, was both sensational and inaccurate.

Aside from the intentional misrepresentation of the Holocaust Museum as the focal point, the real damage caused here by Mrs. Leygerman is that she suggests the entire situation is being caused by just one student: a Board Director’s child.

Unfortunately, Chris Ullery further amplified that message in his Courier article:

“A Twitter post from Diana Leygerman, a former school board candidate and Philadelphia teacher, lambasted the vote saying one board member’s stance on vaccinations robbed students of an important opportunity.”

According to the CDC, ~43% of children 12-17 years of age are not fully vaccinated. Given that this trip was planned for roughly 285 students, we can calculate the number of students who would have experienced segregation or exclusion on the basis of vaccination status as: 285 * 0.43 = approximately 123 students.

So the Central Bucks School Board used their 7-1 vote to protect 123 students from the negative experience of segregation or exclusion, and the Courier Times responded by amplifying the false message that only ONE kid, Mrs. Sciscio’s kid, would have been impacted.

It’s easy to see why the Courier is hemorrhaging subscribers.

The night before Mr. Ullery published his article in the Courier, Maddie Hanna published the same story in an Inquirer article that was, overall, much more fair than Mr. Ullery’s.

Ms. Hanna’s article included a quote from the Central Bucks School Board:

District spokesperson Angela Linch provided a response on behalf of the board, citing “concerns that a daylong trip to the city, with many attractions, restaurants, and other venues requiring proof of vaccination to enter, would place an unfair burden on students, faculty and volunteer chaperones.”

She said, “The majority of the board was unwilling to place the district’s students and teachers in such an unpredictable scenario, with concerns that any student or teacher could be singled out due to vaccination status.”

Under the district’s board-approved health and safety plan, “the vaccination status of a person is private; therefore, employees will not ask, solicit, or engage in discussion around the vaccination status of another adult or student.”

I find it hard to believe that Mr. Ullery would not have known about this statement from the Board prior to publishing his article in the Courier, as typically district statements are provided to all local media. Maybe I’m wrong–I’d like to hear an explanation from him as to why he makes half of his article about Karen Smith’s opinions (as the only CBSD Board Director who voted for segregation based on vaccination status), while leaving out the Board’s official statement, which was already published in other publications the night before.

Perhaps the most bothersome thing about the Courier Times article, the viral tweet from Mrs. Leygerman, and the ensuing community drama, though, is that none of this helps put the focus back on the kids and their well-being.

For example, it’s been particularly difficult to watch people attack Lisa Sciscio’s remark about sending the 9th-grade class to Dorney Park. When hate-filled people hear her comment, they want to hear an ignorant person who doesn’t know the difference between an educational trip and a recreational trip. When the rest of us hear her comment, we hear someone who cares deeply about the students of Central Bucks and understands what they really need right now: getting their lives back. What better way to take the pressure off the kids and just let them have a fun day than to send them to Dorney Park, where they all will be treated equally? And yes, there are educational offerings at the theme park.

It’s extremely disappointing that anyone could possibly attack Mrs. Sciscio’s suggestion the way they have, but I guess that’s just the world we live in now, and that’s the sort of local media we’re working with.

Similarly, I take major issue with the fact that the adults in the room all shriek about the Holocaust Museum, meanwhile nobody says a peep about the Unami Middle School field trip to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty that was unanimously approved by the board.

Why is this important? It’s important because it shows that the adults are making it about themselves, not about the kids. Sure, labeling this as a cancelled Holocaust Museum trip sounds shocking, and this mischaracterization opens the door for cheap shots. But did anyone consider that the Board had no problem approving the trip to Ellis Island, which is one of the most relevant sites in the history of American Judaism and also Judaism generally?

In my opinion, one cannot comprehensively teach about the Holocaust without describing the impact that Ellis Island had on the Immigration Laws of 1921 & 1924, and how those Laws devastatingly undermined the ability of European Jews to emigrate safely prior to and during the Holocaust. And did you know that Jews were the only group of immigrants who had their own dedicated kitchen (for kosher food preparation) at Ellis Island? The fact that Unami students can visit this historic landmark free from threat of segregation, exclusion or embarrassment, should be celebrated.

But no, none of that is worth mentioning. Not while we have an agenda to push. Let’s never find a silver lining or a ray of sunshine; let’s just keep screaming at each other over complex adult topics. To hell with what’s best for the kids. [/s]

At the end of the day, the Central Bucks community has no choice but to make peace with the fact that there are community members with access to local media who, for whatever reason, are determined to keep people divided and angry. I honestly don’t know why exactly they want to do that, but I do know that their irresponsibility has caused real harm to the child of a Central Bucks School Board director. Stop and think about that for a minute.

I’m not so naive to think that any of what I’ve said will in any way improve Mr. Ullery’s journalism. But I hope that at least I’ve helped you, the reader, understand the poor choices that Mr. Ullery made with this article, and the consequences associated with those choices. It is incumbent on the public to hold our local media responsible when they misinform.

And tangentially, I hope that I’ve also given you reason to reflect on how fortunate we are to have the Central Bucks School Board, who continue to lead the community and put kids first despite the immense personal hardship they face.