Central Bucks Bids Farewell to Four School Directors

Together, they have more than 40 years experience serving on the Central Bucks School Board.

They've coped with unprecedented enrollment growth and declining local revenues, the need for more buildings and the call for lower taxes, the anguish of laying off employees and the struggle to maintain high academic standards.  

They also grappled with one very public national furor over a teacher's use of social media.

On Tuesday night, Chuck Baker, Anne Hoy, Carol Downs and Chris Asplen sat for their final meeting as members of the Central Bucks School Board. When the board meets on December 5, they'll be replaced by James R. Duffy, Kelly Unger, Joe Jagelka and Tyler Tomlinson.

Superintendent N. Robert Laws thanked the departing school board members for guiding the district through some difficult times. He called serving on the school board "one of the highest levels of public service" because of the time and effort expended as a volunteer.

"How do you replace the history, the judgement, the leadership?" he asked.

Laws said school board members are asked to make difficult decisions that affect students, employees "and the pocketbooks of taxpayers." He said the four board members "are leaving the district in a position to be sustainable over time."

Baker, the longest tenured school board member, said he was elected in 1991 because the community was upset over a 4-year contract that gave teachers raises of 14 percent a year. Often a central figure in emotional battles during his 20 years on the board, Baker said he learned a lot "and felt like I brought something to the table."

Baker promised the board they would see him in his familiar spot in the audience next month.

"I'm not going anywhere," he said. "I'll be right back where I started."