CB Cares fights for its future as Central Bucks cuts ties. What's next for the nonprofit?

Despite public statements that Central Bucks School District would continue to work with CB Cares Educational Foundation, the district has severed its ties with the nonprofit over what it claims was a breach of trust.

The rift cuts the nonprofit off from a valuable source of state-supported funding, forcing it to shift its focus to other causes as leaders say they're preparing to fight the district over its future.

A March 29 letter from Superintendent Abram Lucabaugh to CB Cares board members, a copy of which was provided to this news organization by CB Cares President Phil Ehlinger, said the 25-year relationship between the two entities had become "untenable."

“Over the past two years, CB Cares has violated this trust through a series of actions, including political affiliations, disruptive messaging and failure to execute duties as delineated in its agreement with the district,” Lucabaugh wrote. “These actions are antithetical to the district’s operation, both philosophically and as an apolitical entity, making the existing relationship untenable.”

The letter was dated the same day Central Bucks announced plans to create its own educational foundation and alumni association, and is contrary to public statements that left open the possibility of continuing the 25-year relationship with CB Cares in some way.

Central Bucks and CB Cares:Central Bucks seeks to 'enhance' student education with new nonprofit, alumni group

Controversy in Central Bucks:Central Bucks LGBTQ students, allies protest over teacher suspension, removal of Pride flags and bullying

In an email to this news organization nearly two months ago, Lucabaugh said the decision to start a new educational foundation was in large part because CB Cares “was not founded with the purpose of being a large-scale grant funding organization.”

The district's announcement included a statement from former CB Cares President Rev. Steve McComas, pastor at Rolling Hills United Methodist Church in Bedminster, that implied the nonprofit and school district might still someday work together.

McComas said recently the statement was a diplomatic move on his part to potentially keep the door open for future collaboration.

“I was hopeful that we could continue to work with the school district and continue to offer the excellent programs in conjunction with the school district for the past 25 years,” McComas said this week.

Ehlinger said the nonprofit group now has retained a lawyer, after the district allegedly threatened to stake a claim to the organization’s funds.

“(CBSD) has been boldly suggesting through several channels that they have some right to our funds and our bank account. This is nothing short of threatening to steal donations and funds we have raised and saved over many years,” Ehlinger wrote in a recent email to board members and shared with this news organization.

CB Cares now has to reassess its mission. It likely will lose its status as an educational foundation, a status it has had since 2012, without a direct link to the district.

That status allowed CB Cares to receive state Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) funds from certain businesses, which it used to support its innovative learning grants beginning in 2014.

The grants of up to $1,000 were awarded to teachers who wanted to pursue projects that might not be covered by the district’s budget.

Ehlinger said last week that CB Cares plans to shift its focus to supporting Doylestown Health, one of its other oldest partnerships since the nonprofit formed in 1996.

Is CB Cares a casualty of the pandemic and culture war in Central Bucks?

Ehlinger and McComas said members of the CB Cares board were “blindsided” by Lucabaugh’s March letter.

“We have offered some excellent programming with the school district over the past 25 years. And to see all of that coming to an abrupt halt, it just … it makes no sense, I don’t understand it,“ McComas said.

Ehlinger said he thinks the decision was in part a result of a push by some area residents to remove LGBTQ-related books, and lingering coronavirus pandemic tensions.

CB Cares has been a featured target of a group called Woke PA, which originally began as Woke Bucks County, for several months.

Woke PA pushes for book ban in Bucks:Central Bucks district book ban? What 'Woke Bucks County' wants in its effort to 'reclaim our schools'

The group has drummed up fervor over what it deems to be “sexually explicit” library books in school districts across Bucks, Montgomery and, most recently, Westmoreland counties.

Woke PA has included a webpage specifically focusing on CB Cares, with its ire aimed at a “Rainbow Book Rack” in an unnamed Central Bucks classroom which was funded through the nonprofit’s innovative learning grant.

Ehlinger said the nonprofit didn’t choose what books went on the rack, though he said he and the rest of the CB Cares board supports the books that were included.

A book of nonfiction interviews with multiple transgender teens called "Beyond Magenta" and another fiction book, "Lily and Dunkin," about the friendship between a transgender child and their friend who has bipolar disorder, are two books on the rack specifically named on Woke PA’s website.

CBSD meeting sees book ban push:Woke PA's book ban push comes to Central Bucks board meeting

CBSD tweaks book policy:Central Bucks School District tweaks controversial book policy. ACLU says it's still 'legally problematic'

This news organization specifically asked the district in March if the recent efforts of Woke PA’s book ban was related to the decision to form a new foundation and was told “unequivocally, no.”

Ehlinger said he thinks the wedge was created not only by the book ban push by Woke PA, but also allegations that former CB Cares employee and Doylestown Township Supervisor Nancy Santacecilia used her position with the nonprofit to send racially charged political flyers to district employees. CB Cares has condemned her actions.

Also, he said, a mask donation drive earlier this year probably helped further the rift with the district.

Parents lead CBSD mask donation drive:Central Bucks parents lead effort to distribute 2,300 masks to district teachers, support staff

When a new coronavirus variant caused cases to surge this winter, a group of area residents reached out to the district’s teachers union to see if employees were in need of masks.

The district at that point was not requiring masks be worn in schools, a change to its health and safety plan that quickly followed the swearing in of the mostly Republican board in December.

Three of the five new board members elected in November were vehemently opposed to mask requirements and other pandemic mitigation rules.

The parent-led effort put about 2,300 KN95 and N95 masks in the hands of several hundred teachers, support staff and transportation workers in the district.

CB Cares Executive Director Kimberly Cambra helped organize and deliver the masks to various district schools.

Ehlinger said he believes Cambra’s involvement with the mask donations might have been a tipping point and possibly the “disruptive messaging” that led to the March 29 letter.

School district officials have not returned requests for comment.

CB Cares to audit finances after district questions spending

Ehlinger said CB Cares has spent $10,000 on a financial auditor to review its records, in response to an April 12 school board meeting in which Lucabaugh and at least one school board member questioned the group's finances.

Ehlinger described a presentation by Lucabaugh that compared CB Cares to other educational foundations as a “slanderous attack” in an email to the nonprofit’s board members.

“It was an unfair and unjustified attack that failed to acknowledge the great programs and good work we do and used misleading metrics to judge our effectiveness,” Ehlinger said.

While Lucabaugh repeated that CB Cares was never meant to be the kind of financial “powerhouse” like the other foundations included in the presentation, he also made multiple comparisons between them.

One slide listed the estimated grant awards each nonprofit gave to its school districts and the year they were founded; most awarded several hundred thousands of dollars and some over $1 million.

The slide then referenced CB Cares as awarding roughly $178,000 since it was founded in 1996, a figure a founding member of the nonprofit, Stephen Albert, challenged at a board meeting the following month.

Teens and mental health:We asked teens about their mental health. What they said, and what's being done to help

Albert was a teacher and administrator in public education for nearly 50 years, 32 in Central Bucks.

He said CB Cares came out of multiple years of discussions between the district, the Central Bucks Chamber of Commerce and Doylestown Health, with a focus on improving the quality of life for children in the area.

While the nonprofit was formed a quarter of a century ago, Albert noted that it didn’t become an educational foundation until 2012 and didn’t begin receiving EITC funds that would make up the grant award figure shown in Lucabaugh’s presentation until 2014.

Assuming the maximum award for each grant, Lucabaugh’s figure suggests they’ve awarded on average about $7,000 in grants per year; Albert's timeline would make that average closer to $22,250 per year.

Albert, Ehlinger and McComas have also stressed that a significant amount of the nonprofit’s work has included arranging assemblies and events for students, resources for parents, and fundraisers that wouldn’t be included in the $178,000 figure.

Also during the April 12 meeting, school board director Jim Pepper questioned how CB Cares was using its funds, which Ehlinger said has led to the nonprofit seeking an independent auditor to review its finances. That auditor is costing the nonprofit $10,000, he said.

Ehlinger has said he would share the results of the group’s audit when it was finished, but said they are still currently looking for a financial group they haven’t worked with in the past to perform the review.

This news organization is also undertaking its own review of available financial data.

More:The Garden Bar at Puck pops up in Doylestown serving drinks and live music

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Letter blames politics for Central Bucks cutting ties with nonprofit