Steven Yanni, the new Central Bucks School District superintendent, wants to leave behind culture-war battles, an issue that has attracted national attention over the last several years, writes Maddie Hanna for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Instead, he wants to focus on education.

“Conversations about teaching and learning and student achievement have been missing, not just in Central Bucks but in a lot of districts, for a long time,” said Yanni.

Subjects like pandemic policies and LGBTQ issues have divided the district. Therefore, with an emphasis on education, Yanni, who was previously superintendent of Lower Merion School District, hopes he can help reunite the community.

“I think as a nation, we need to get back to a point where we can disagree and not hate each other,” said Yanni.

His priorities include rolling out guidelines for staff to “create classroom environments where we can address really hard topics, topics where there’s inherent conflict, and not let it explode.”

Yanni also said that his overarching goal for the year is to ensure “we’re all moving in the same direction … that we communicate really clearly, internally and externally, that our staff and students feel physically and psychologically safe.”

Read the full interview with Steven Yanni at The Philadelphia Inquirer.