Central Bucks Rolling Out Training To Teach Students Personal Safety

DOYLESTOWN, PA ? In the wake of two incidents of employee misconduct involving minors, the Central Bucks School District is rolling out new programming to educate students about personal safety including appropriate boundaries, communication, and touch.

Superintendent Dr. Abram Lucabaugh announced this week that the training will begin at the elementary level and migrate to the middle and high school levels.

?In the last two years, our district has suffered two very unfortunate incidents involving inappropriate conduct by employees with children entrusted in their care. I want to be clear - 99.9 percent of our employees have the best interest of our students in mind and they are absolutely committed to the well-being of the children they serve," said Lucabaugh. "However, actions of a few have the ability to impact the whole and these situations leave a scar.?

The goal of the new programming, said Lucabaugh, will be to teach students to understand the importance of setting and responding to personal boundaries and the relationship between peers and adults in any capacity to foster healthy and responsible interactions.

?This is the standard of expectation and it is why the district has taken the steps that it has taken, including a policy that requires material in our libraries that contain gratuitous, graphic age-inappropriate sexualized content to be removed and replaced with books of the exact same genre and intended for the same audience thus ensuring the district is not exposing students to gratuitous, graphic age-inappropriate sexualized content.

?It?s that simple,? said the superintendent. ?It?s not a ban. It?s a standard of expectation.?

Lucabaugh said recently a book in the library that teaches students, among other things, directions and suggestions for using hook-up apps to facilitate sexual encounters was deemed inappropriate by the district?s book review committee and it was removed from the shelves.

?And there were protests to our removing it,? said Lucabaugh. ?Given that the most recent occurrence of employee misconduct involved the use of one of those apps to contact students, I find it inconceivable anybody would support the existence of this content in our libraries.

?There is absolutely no reason for anyone to engage students in conversation about their sexual habits, their sexual preferences, or their orientation. And if you think that?s acceptable, I?m going to come for you,? he said. ?It?s unacceptable that this has ever happened in our district.?

The training, said Lucabaugh, is in place and will be rolled out for the district?s elementary students.

?We will be developing it for our middle and high school grades. And we will be able to expose our staff as well to the training,? he said.