LOWER SAUCON TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Five incumbents on Saucon Valley School Board will try to fend off five challengers in a heated primary election next month — all while the district is embroiled in controversy over an after-school Satan Club and its legal fallout.
The race breaks into three groups.
- Five incumbents on the Saucon Valley School Board are running for re-election as a slate, saying they've kept taxes low and maintained the district's strong academics
- Four challengers are running against them as an opposing slate, saying the district is hobbled by low morale and poor leadership
- A fifth challenger, J. Barrett Geyer, is running an independent campaign
Incumbents Susan Baxter, Bryan Eichfeld, Laurel Erickson-Parsons, Michael Karabin and Shawn Welch are running as a slate, saying they've kept taxes under control while overseeing one of the region's highest-performing school districts.
Four challengers — Bill Broun, Donald Carpenter, Vivian Demko and Jay Santos — have formed another slate. They allege the district's academic performance has slipped and blame those in office for focusing more on culture battles and penny pinching than education.
Meanwhile, J. Barrett Geyer is running as an individual, saying he wants to get more parents involved in the district.
The candidates on the opposing slates have cross-filed, meaning they'll appear on ballots for both the Democratic and Republican primaries. Geyer is running as a Republican.
The winners of the primary contests will appear on the ballot in November's general election.
The race comes in the midst of an ongoing lawsuit from the ACLU after the district booted an after-school Satan Club from Saucon Valley Middle School.
Federal law required the district to give the club the same access as other religious organizations, but the district revoked access in February, saying the club failed to make clear it was not sponsored by the district.
The revocation came after Superintendent Jaime Vlasaty said "hell broke loose" as the district was bombarded with calls and school was cancelled after a North Carolina man made a bomb threat over the club.
Incumbent slate
Sitting members of the board declined to discuss the lawsuit in detail, citing the ongoing litigation.
But while the circumstances of the suit have drawn heightened attention, Karabin downplayed the issue. Every local government, as a course of doing business, finds itself in lawsuits, he said.
While this one is unusually flashy, it's no different from the more mundane ones governments encounter from time to time, he said.
"If you look around the Lehigh Valley, they're all the same. There are unexpected things that pop up," said Karabin, who has served 20 years on the board over two stints dating to 1994. Now retired, he previously worked as a financial analyst for Bethlehem Steel.
Beyond the lawsuit, the incumbents largely pointed to their stewardship of taxpayer dollars.
Eichfeld, a salesman, said the district has raised property taxes just three times during his 12 years in office; one of those hikes was offset by the elimination of a per capita tax.
The district's shrinking student population has allowed officials to reduce the teaching staff without harming the high level of education parents expect from the district, he said.
We are running on our record, and I think our record has delivered for this community.Saucon Valley School Board candidate Shawn Welch
He and Welch said district residents already face high tax loads, and the board has worked hard to manage personnel and building maintenance to avoid further financial burdens.
"Most other districts are raising taxes almost every other year," Eichfeld said.
"We are running on our record, and I think our record has delivered for this community," said Welch, a retired Army colonel who served as deputy director of infrastructure out of the Pentagon.
Baxter, the board president who has spent a total of 22 years in office, said the board has managed to avoid much of the labor unrest that plagued the district in the past.
In March, the board voted 8-1 to approve a five-year contract with Saucon Valley Education Association that will boost teachers' pay $2,000 a year; all five slate members approved the contract.
The union had gone on strike in 2005, 2008 and 2009 and narrowly avoided another strike in 2015 after working four years without a contract.
"This year, it was phenomenal," Baxter said. "We were able to negotiate a contract without the lawyers and the UniServe representative at the table."
The slate members also touted their decision to return to full in-person classes in fall 2020 — the first Lehigh Valley school district to return to regular instruction.
Many other school districts adopted fully remote lessons or planned for a mix of the two. Since then, many districts have seen students' grades tumble as they needed to make up for lost learning.
The slate members said the board's decision kept learning loss to a minimum in Saucon Valley.
"All districts got hammered by the pandemic," Welch said. "All districts saw drops in scores. We are probably the least affected because we were open."
Erickson-Parsons did not respond to interview requests for this article. A pediatrician with St. Luke's University Health Network, she was appointed to the board in August.
Choices for Change slate
Four of the incumbents' challengers argue the district has stagnated under their leadership.
Santos, a government solutions engineer, and Demko, a retired teacher who taught in Saucon Valley for 28 years, said the district has settled for its current test scores instead of working for better results, particularly for students from economically-challenged families.
As in most districts across Pennsylvania, Saucon Valley's students from low-income households score markedly worse on state exams than do their richer classmates.
"The curriculum has not had the focus and attention you might find in other districts," Santos said, adding the district only recently filled a long-vacant director of curriculum position.
The slate said the board hasn't effectively balanced education over controlling costs — and has favored finances over students.
Some of them seem to think very highly of themselves and not very highly of others. That permeates into many of their decisions and the attitude of the board.Saucon Valley School Board candidate Don Carpenter
Demko, former president of the Saucon Valley Education Association, said the district should seek ways to encourage learning without incurring expenses, such as starting a Head Start program.
Instead, it's been cutting support staff who coach teachers and provide students with more hands-on lessons, she said.
The union, she noted, has taken the unusual step of endorsing the Choices for Change slate; it normally stays out of elections, including her failed bid for school board in 2021.
"There are things that can help our school that don’t cost money," Demko said. "I live here. I understand that we need to keep our taxes under control."
Broun, an East Stroudsburg University English professor, said the board has let politics distract it from its primary job of enabling educators.
The Satan Club, he said, is the perfect example. He said that, like many parents, he's not thrilled the club has opted to use the district to prove a point, but the board and administration have bungled the situation from the start.
Instead of letting the situation blow over, the district entangled itself in an avoidable lawsuit against top-notch attorneys representing the deep-pocketed ACLU, he said.
"I feel irritated that they’re picking on our district, but we asked for it," he said. "We set the bottles up in a row for them."
Carpenter, a senior research technician with ExxonMobil, said the entrenched incumbents govern with a sense that they know best and won't entertain alternate perspectives from the public or outside professionals.
He pointed to a recent exchange between the board and an official with Colonial Intermediate Unit 20, a regional education group that provides services to special needs students from school districts in Monroe, Northampton and Pike counties.
The official came to request additional funding from the board but had to endure questions about his organization's fiscal prudence, including questions about his own salary, Carpenter said.
At the same meeting, the district approved $8 million in spending for capital projects without nearly as much debate.
"Some of them seem to think very highly of themselves and not very highly of others. That permeates into many of their decisions and the attitude of the board," Carpenter said.
The solo candidate
Geyer, a marketing manager, has largely avoided the more aggressive campaign other challengers have adopted. His campaign is focusing more on improving parent involvement in the district.
Local government functions better when residents engage with it, he said, and studies have found that students perform better when their parents invest their time and energy in their education.
I've elected to stay here. It's important to me that my kids get the same great education that I got.Saucon Valley School Board candidate J. Barrett Geyer
He said if elected, he would propose holding committee meetings later than their current 5 p.m. start time, saying it was unrealistic for parents to attend. He also said he wants to bring back virtual participation for meetings.
As the only candidate not campaigning with together with others, emphasized that voters select their candidates individually, not as a slate.
Geyer, is also the only candidate who is a district alumnus who has a child now attending school the district. Keeping that in mind, he asked that voters to consider the credentials and goals of each individual candidate when they cast their ballot.
"I've elected to stay here," he said. "It's important to me that my kids get the same great education that I got."
