In Saucon Valley, incumbents, challengers vie for 5 seats
Incumbents hail bipartisan successes while slate says district is in ‘chaos”
In the Saucon Valley School District, voters are being asked to choose between incumbents running on their record or challengers, including a slate that says current leadership has brought on unnecessary controversies while letting academics slip.
Ten candidates in all are running in the May 16 primary for nominations for five seats on the nine-member board.
The incumbents include a bipartisan slate of Republicans Susan Baxter, Shawn Welch and Bryan Eichfeld, and Democrats Michael Karabin and Laurel Erickson-Parsons.
Four challengers, all Democrats, are part of a slate called Saucon School Board Choices for Change.
They include Bill Broun, Donald L. Carpenter III, Vivian Demko and Jay Santos.
Running on his own is Republican J. Barrett Geyer, whose name will only appear on the Republican ballot.
All the others have cross-filed, meaning their names will appear on both ballots. Only Democrats and Republicans can vote in the primary.
The election comes as Saucon Valley is the defendant in a First Amendment rights lawsuit filed by the ACLU over Superintendent Jaime Vlasaty’s decision to give and then revoke permission to allow the non-school affiliated After School Satan Club on school grounds.
The issue has drawn national attention as a slew of parents and taxpayers spoke out at board meetings. It drew fear among parents when a North Carolina man was arrested in February for allegedly threatening violence in the district because of the club.
The situation led the board to unanimously vote on April 25 to revise the district’s use of facilities policy for non-school sponsored groups and the fee schedule.
On May 1, a federal judge ordered the district to allow the group to meet on dates that were initially approved by Vlasaty
Saucon Valley serves Lower Saucon Township and Hellertown Borough. It has about 2,000 students in three schools.
Following is a look at the candidates. Information on the candidates was found on campaign websites, Facebook pages, Linkedin sites, news articles, board meeting minutes and videos and email interviews.
Incumbents
The incumbents seeking reelection are:
Republican Susan Baxter, a retired electrical engineer who has served on the board since the 1990s and is the board president.
Republican Shawn Welch, a retired Army colonel whose last assignment was in the Pentagon. He is the board’s vice president. He serves as co-chair of a federal advisory committee for the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Republican Bryan Eichfeld, an 11-year board veteran who is a Navy veteran and works in sales. Over the years, he generated headlines for calling an environmental science book’s chapter on global warming “propaganda,” for questioning a student UNICEF club because of the group’s ties to the United Nations and for trying to postpone a gender studies vote over concerns about activism and victimization.
Democrat Michael Karabin, a former U.S. Army operating room technician who was a price analyst at Bethlehem Steel. He served on the board in the 1980s and returned in the 1990s. He co-founded the Lehigh Valley Regional Charter School.
Democrat Laurel Erickson-Parsons, a physician specializing in pediatrics and physician education at St. Luke’s University and Health Network. The mother of four district students was appointed to the board in August to replace Edward Andres, who resigned.
Baxter, Karabin, Eichfeld, Welch and Erickson-Parsons said they are running because they have demonstrated an ability to work together as a bipartisan team.
“We are ‘Pro-Saucon,’” the group said in an email. “We believe our strength is the diversity of our skills, experiences and viewpoints and our ability to leverage it all in support of the goals and objectives of our community for the best education at the best value.”
The incumbents pointed to the following successes:
The tax rate was raised twice over the last 12 years, both of which were below the state index. One increase occurred in June. Baxter and Eichfeld voted with the yes majority and Karabin and Welch were among three no votes on approving a $51.1 million budget for 2022-23 that raised the property tax by 1.2289 mills to 54.6589 mills, according to meeting minutes.
“We will continue to keep taxes as flat as possible and control spending,” the board members said in an email.
With a history of teacher strikes in the district, the board and teachers came to an early agreement in March on a five-year contract. Salaries in year one, which begins in July, will range from $57,182 to $99,965, according to the district. The contract will not require a tax increase,the candidates said.
The board steered the district through the covid pandemic, becoming “the only Lehigh Valley district to open for in-person classes at the start of the 2020-2021 school year.”
The incumbent said the district has a stable teaching staff with more than 80% being with the district for more than 10 years. They also said the teachers are among the highest paid in the Lehigh Valley.
The board hired a security specialist firm that the incumbents said is “fully capable of addressing lethal threats to district students and personnel.”
The incumbents said they increased academic standards, including doubling the high school math instruction requirement.
If reelected, the incumbents, among other goals, want to “continue a strong academic focus concentrating on the critical skills – with a transparent curriculum – minus current politically divisive concepts and materials.”
When asked about accusations of allegations of chaos in the district, they said, “We are running on our positive record and positive campaign. Our work is in our votes; over the last 4 years all of the decisions of the board have been either unanimous, or with strong bi-partisan vote. None of our decisions have been based on partisanship or ideology, as we have always come together to discuss issues and reach a common sense solution.”
Saucon School Board Choices for Change
The Democrats running under the Saucon School Board Choices for Change slate include:
Bill Broun, an English professor at East Stroudsburg University and author who has a blog called My Private Hellertown. He was a resident fellow and taught writing at Yale University. He ran unsuccessfully for Hellertown Council in 2021.
Donald L. Carpenter III, a researcher at ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering in New Jersey and president of a labor union. He earned bachelor's and master’s degrees from Lehigh University.
Vivian Demko, a former president of the Saucon Valley Education Association. A graduate of Saucon Valley High School, she taught in the district for nearly 30 years. Demko unsuccessfully ran for school board in 2019 and sought to be appointed to the board in August when Erickson-Parsons was chosen to replace Andres.
Jay Santos, a government solutions engineer at Dun & Bradstreet in Bethlehem. He has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Penn State and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Western Governors University.
In a press release, the slate said that, while they are Democrats, they are a nonpartisan group that is running because of the current state of the district.
“It’s been chaos, sadly, lurching from one ridiculous disaster to another,” Broun said in the release. “With all due respect, the board doesn’t seem to know how to run a high-achieving school system or really understand what one looks like. They’ve had plenty of time, and plenty of tax dollars, and this is what we get? Sorry — nowhere near good enough.”
The Saucon School Board Choices for Change candidates said the current board has failed to address pressing needs facing the district, including a high turnover rate among teachers, lack of maintenance on facilities and inadequate curriculum.
“Our district has had slipping rankings over the past few years and the board has been aloof and unresponsive to many concerns over that time period,” Carpenter said on his Facebook page.
The slate said the board is spending unnecessary time and money fighting the After School Satan Club, which on its website said it only seeks to establish itself in school districts where Christian clubs already exist.
“Shouldn’t we be having board meetings about education and not trying to wage a losing battle against the ACLU?” Carpenter wrote on Facebook.
The slate said the legal fight over the After School Satan Club is an example of the extremism that the board is bringing into the district.
“They have brought ugly ‘culture wars’ into the experiences of children and parents, too, something we find unacceptable," the slate said on its website.
Broun said the slate is advocating for more professional district public relations, more academic coaching support for teachers and a “very smart” curriculum overhaul.
Santos said staff turnover and the loss of top teaching talent “is not only detrimental to the teachers themselves but also to the quality of education that our children receive."
“I want to make smart, sensible decisions that take the budget in mind. I also want to make sure that our teachers aren’t faced with a revolving door situation and can find stability in their profession.”
Broun said making teachers feel valued requires “communication skills and humility and authenticity—all lacking on the current board,” he said. “There’s a serious teacher morale crisis, and that, in turn, is hurting our academic program. No contract is going to fix that.”
Demko said she will bring a unique perspective to the board. “I have served our district and our community in a wide variety of capacities for too many years to count! From being a teacher for over 28 years to volunteering with numerous groups, I have a strong commitment to our schools and community,” she said.
Unaffiliated candidate
Republican J. Barrett Geyer is running on the Republican ballot. He is not affiliated with a slate. Geyer is a married father of two who grew up in the district. He is a marketing manager at Synergis Engineering Design Solutions who has a bachelor’s degree in business manager/economics from Moravian College. He is a member of the Lower Saucon Parks and Recreation Commission and the Friends of the Hellertown Library.
“I’m passionate about ensuring the continued quality education that Saucon is known for and that I personally experienced,” he said. “Parents are a vital part of the public school system and I hope to bring more of that perspective to decision-making.” Geyer is advocating for more community involvement, regular review of curriculum to achieve academic excellence and cost-conscious spending.