Central Bucks has settled lawsuit with teacher who said the district punished him for helping a transgender student
But the agreement effectively erases those findings — requiring not only that any references to the Duane Morris report be struck from Burgess’s employment record, but that Central Bucks remove the Duane Morris report from its website and not distribute it to anyone in the future. Susan Gibson, one of the new Democrats on the board and also an attorney, said she shared some of Pepper’s concerns, but that it was “in the fiduciary interest of this district to approve this settlement.”
A middle school teacher, Burgess was placed on paid leave in May 2022 after he had submitted the complaint on behalf of the transgender student. He was temporarily reinstated — but assigned to a different school — and placed on paid leave again in April 2023, following the release of the Duane Morris report.
He filed a lawsuit against the district in April 2023. Nine days later, the school board released Duane Morris’s report. (The Office for Civil Rights has not yetThe report accused Burgess and Democratic activists of ginning up the allegations — claiming that Burgess had “manipulated” the transgender student and dissuaded the student from reporting the bullying to administrators due to an “ulterior motive.