These 3 Central Bucks Parents Started a ‘Revolution’ to Save Their School District

“CBSD Neighbors United Was a Revolution in Central Bucks School District.” This was the title of a recent column authored by Diana Leygerman, Tracy Suits, and Steve Sullivan, district parents and the founders of the organization which helped save the school district from Moms for Liberty, a local MAGA multi-millionaire, and other right-wing political arsonists who had captured the school board back in 2021 and were pushing a reactionary, and largely anti-public education agenda. The three join me today to talk about how CBSD Neighbors United started, the organization’s breathtaking success, and why even though they are closing its doors they are confident the movement they helped start will live on. 

Diana Leygerman is a Central Bucks School District parent and the Director of Comms and Strategy of CBSD Neighbors United.

Steve Sullivan is a CBSD parent and the Director of Fundraising for Neighbors United.

Tracy Suits is the current chair of the Chalfont New Britain Democrats. She served on the Central Bucks school board from 2017 to 2021, and is the Chair and Director of Operations for CBSD Neighbors United. She’s also a CBSD parent.

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Marlene Pray (she/her) is a queer activist, sexuality educator, and community organizer whose work spans over three decades of LGBTQ+ advocacy, anti-racism, and social justice movement-building. She founded and directs the Rainbow Room, Bucks County’s LGBTQ+ youth center at Planned Parenthood Keystone, which has been a lifeline for queer youth in the region for 24 years. 

A PhD candidate in Human Sexuality Education, Marlene has trained educators, organizations, and communities across the country on LGBTQ+ inclusion, racial equity, and youth empowerment. Her public service includes serving on Doylestown Borough Council, where she championed the borough’s LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination ordinance, and she continues to lead through board roles with the NAACP and NAMI Bucks County. Marlene lives in Doylestown and brings her whole self to the work — as an organizer, mother, homicide survivor, and earth-based celebrant committed to collective liberation.

She joins me today to kick off Pride Month, to talk about its history as a riot, as protest, and as a demand, and what the fight for LGBTQ+ rights looks like today.

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Welcome, welcome everybody to a special edition of The Signal from the Bucks County Beacon. Today guest host Kevin Mahoney talks with Cyril Mychalejko, the editor-in-chief of the Bucks County Beacon, about this week’s primary elections. We’ll take a look at the results and focus on two of the contested Democratic primaries: the PA 01 House race to face Brian Fitzpatrick in November, and the PA 16th State Senate race that will challenge Moms for Liberty darling, Jarett Coleman. What do the results mean in November's mid-terms?

We’ll also take a little stroll down memory lane as Cyril celebrates his fourth anniversary with the Beacon! That’s right, Cyril basically has the equivalent of a presidential term with the Beacon - and what a few years it has been.

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"I believe if we just give the AI revolution to tech billionaires we're going to have political unrest in this country." Ro Khanna is a Bucks County native who is a U.S. Representative in California’s 17th District. He is also vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Last month he wrote an article in The Nation, “AI for the People”, which laid out his vision “for an AI revolution that works for the many not just the billionaires.” He joins us today to talk about why he is an an AI-democratist, his policy vision for regulating this disruptive technology, and why we cannot allow Big Tech oligarchs to build a society where “AI ‘progress’ is defined by their wealth rather than by our democracy.”

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Tim Hayes is an Army National Guard Veteran, Dublin Borough Council President, and Environmental Legislative Manager running for State Representative in Pennsylvania’s 143rd District. He joins us today to talk about growing up in Bucks County, his dedication to public service, and why Republican Shelby Labs has failed her constituents.

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Anneke van Rossum is the Advocacy and Advancement Coordinator at Delaware Riverkeeper Network. She has been in her staff role for just over 3 years but has a storied history with the organization going back to childhood. Anneke graduated from Ithaca College with her Bachelor of Arts in Politics and minored in Environmental Studies. She then went on to Vermont Law School where she graduated with her JD in 2022. Anneke role centers around education, community organizing, and overall uplifting of the powerful work Delaware Riverkeeper Network does.

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NewsChannel 5 Chief Investigative Reporter Phil Williams is one of the most highly acclaimed investigative journalists in America. He has been recognized with journalism’s most prestigious honors on multiple occasions throughout his 40-year career. He is a five-time recipient of the George Foster Peabody Award and a five-time recipient of the duPont Columbia Award, both considered broadcasting’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. 

He was inducted into the ranks of some of America’s best-known reporters in 2023 when he was honored with the highly coveted John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism. That award is administered by Columbia Journalism School. That same year, on his Last Week Tonight show, HBO’s John Oliver presented a 10-minute segment about Williams’s reporting, famously dubbing him “Nashville’s Nosiest Bitch” and citing his work as the type of unflinching journalism desperately needed in America. 

He joins us for Local News Day to discuss the importance of local media, his own pro-democracy reporting, and why for the last few years he and his team have refused to surrender to the fascist mob and continue to center their work on investigating and reporting about hate groups and political extremists looking to seize power and grow their influence in Tennessee (and beyond). 

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Tom Taft comes from a family with a 200 year history of dedicated public service. Tom wanted to add to that and his own legacy with a run for Congress as a Democrat in PA-01 but had to end his campaign after failing to gather the required number of signatures. Nevertheless, he joins me today to talk about politics in Bucks County’s first congressional district and the race for the Democratic nomination in May for a chance to unseat Republican incumbent Brian Fitzpatrick. 

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Barbara Simmons serves as executive director of The Peace Center, an educational peace and justice non-profit organization in Bucks County. After retiring from the role in 2019 (after 30 years in the position), she came out of retirement in October 2025 to once again lead the organization after it was announced it was planning on closing—something she couldn’t let happen. Barbara spoke with me today to talk about International Women’s Day, what’s new at The Peace Center, and the organizing work around making Bucks County a more just, inclusive, and compassionate community.

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An anti-fascist, dystopian YA novel published last week, We Were the Cuckoos Bees, was inspired in large part by Central Bucks School District during a time when Moms for Liberty and right-wing Christian extremists captured the school board in the early part of this decade. This is a story the Bucks County Beacon has reported on in great detail. Today I speak with local author Rich Shifman, who writes YA stories under the pen name, R.B. Shifman, about his new book which he dedicated to local Bucks County residents who helped flip the school board in late 2023 to bring sanity, common sense and compassion back to the school district. 

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