PEN ARGYL, Pa. — Voters in the borough and Plainfield Township will have their pick of candidates in a crowded May primary for Pen Argyl Area School Board, but don't confuse competition with controversy.
Every candidate who spoke with LehighValleyNews.com agreed Pen Argyl Area School District is performing well, despite lacking the deep pockets of some other Lehigh Valley communities.
There's been just one tax hike in four years, the district has no debt and voters appeared to be satisfied with the level of education students were getting.
Instead, candidates are campaigning on their own records or the philosophies they hope to bring to the board.
Six seats on the nine-member board are up for grabs this year. Because the district is divided into three regions, individual voters will vote for up to two candidates. Wind Gap, the district's Region III, does not have a contested race as incumbents John Dally Jr. and Jason Keenhold are the only ones on both the Democratic and Republican ballots.
- Voters will select six candidates this year to serve on the Pen Argyl Area School Board
- The district is divided into three regions, and voters in each region can vote for up to two candidates
- Both seats in Wind Gap are uncontested, as is the four-year term in Pen Argyl
Region I Races — Pen Argyl
Voters in Pen Argyl will elect one board member to a four-year term and one candidate to a two-year term. The race for the four-year term is all but over already — Board President Lisa Hackman is the only candidate in either primary after challenger Tighe Scott withdrew his nomination petition.
Meanwhile, three candidates are running to complete the term of Heather Hahn, who resigned from the board in 2022. Tom Knorr, a retired science teacher, was appointed to the position in May and hopes to serve out the final two years. The other candidates are Hackman, the board president and Jim Frey, a flight paramedic with Lehigh Valley Health Network. Knorr and Hartman have cross-filed while Frey is running as a Republican.
Hackman said she filed in both races to maximize her odds of getting re-elected; Republican Tighe Scott submitted paperwork to run for the four-year term before withdrawing. If Hackman wins both positions, the board will be tasked with appointing someone to the post she opts not to fill.
Hackman is campaigning on her track record, saying the district has performed well during her tenure. The district is among the highest performers academically in the Lehigh Valley, she said, and its finances are in strong shape. The board has approved only one tax hike in the past four years, when the millage rate climbed 1.8% for the 2022-2023 fiscal year. Meanwhile, the district has added a new track and installed air conditioning at 86-year-old Pen Argyl Area High School. Best of all, she said, the district has no debt.
The district's strong financial situation has allowed the board to focus on the maintaining the quality of education, Hackman said. COVID relief funds have been dedicated to maintaining staffing and busing, she said. While the Pen Argyl Area School District has battled shortages of teachers, drivers and tutors like other communities across the state, the district had no teacher vacancies earlier this month.
The biggest challenge, she said, will be catching kids up on their education after the pandemic. Students fell behind academically during the health crisis, and the district will need to offer more services and tutoring to get them up to speed.
"That's going to be a huge hurdle to help these kids get through," Hackman said.
Knorr said his 38 years of experience as a former science teacher and supervisor at the district and Pocono Mountain School District make him the best candidate for the seat. He designed award-winning science curriculums and oversaw the budget of the science department at Pocono Mountain, so he said he knows what it takes to create a high-achieving education while watching out for tax payers. His seven adult children all graduated from the Pen Argyl Area School District, he said.
Like Hackman, he agrees the district is in strong position financially and praised the board and administration. Hiring and retaining good teachers will be a critical focus for the next board, he said. The pandemic led to a shortage of teachers in the state, and districts have been poaching teachers from one another.
"In all my years in education, I never saw this transition of teachers from one district to another. I think the Pen Argyl district is moving in the right direction," he said.
Frey, the father of Board Member Megan Pultz, said he hopes to bring his life experiences to the board. While he earned a teaching degree and taught as a substitute at the Bangor Area School District, he spent most of his career with MetEd, working as a lineman and a manager of two operation centers. He decried what he described as a participation trophy mindset, where schools and youth programs don't allow kids to fail. When these kids reach adulthood, they're unprepared for the realities of the workplace, he said.
"I want to get involved and see what I can do to change some things if that's called for," Frey said.
One thing he wants to review are pensions and tenure for teachers. While he's been a union member in the past, he said districts should have the right to move on from teachers who are ineffective, regardless of how long they've worked in the district. Frey was unsure of how much support there would be for these changes on the board.
"If you don't do a good job, there should be something can be done about it," he said.
Region II Race — Plainfield Township
Plainfield Township residents will elect two board members to four-year terms. The candidates include incumbent Jeff Moyer, former board member Robert Rutt, married couple Nancy O'Keefe and Joseph Colosi and returning candidate Debra Mouisset. Moyer and Rutt are cross-filed. Colosi and O'Keefe are running as Democrats, while Mouisset is running as a Republican.
O'Keefe previously ran La Bella Cuisine in Emmaus before retiring in 2018, and Colosi is a retired environmental science professor who taught at DeSales University. The couple said they're running to be allies to all students and families in the district. They've grown concerned about the culture wars being waged over gender and race in other states and elsewhere in the Lehigh Valley, they said. These debates haven't caught hold in the Pen Argyl Area School District, and nothing school board members or administrators have said on these topics has raised their concerns.
"I've attended three school board meetings, and they were boring, which is how they should be," Colosi said.
However, O'Keefe and Colosi said the best way they could ensure all parties would be treated with respect was to get directly involved. A chapter of Moms For Liberty has been active in the neighboring Nazareth Area School District, and its members have called for banning transgender athletes from competing on school teams that align with their gender identity, restricting library books and preventing school administrators from undergoing training about white privilege.
"They talk about liberty, but they want to impose their will on schools," Colosi said.
"We would like to make sure every student voice is heard no matter how different they may be. That's going to foster continuity and a much stronger relationship that will benefit the community," O'Keefe said.
Moyer is seeking a second term, saying he hopes to serve until his daughter graduates from the district. He and this board, he said, have been advocates for tax payers. The district has performed well academically while being fiscally responsible. There's only been one tax hike in four years, and the district has no debt, he said.
"Our little community doesn't have a lot of problems," he said. "It would be a great success if we can go three out of the next four years without a tax increase just as we've done."
Moyer has served as chair of the curriculum committee. He said it's been his goal to make sure the education students get focuses on the essentials. He's not interested in pushing a political agenda, he said, just reading, writing and arithmetic.
"I'm just kind of keeping a watchful eye on things. I think our administration and our teachers, they're all doing what's best for our kids. I think it all starts with the administration and the hiring of good teachers. They're executing their jobs as they should be," Moyer said.
While he's not currently in office, Rutt has spent more time on the board than any other candidate in the Region II race. He served 20 years on the board before losing to Christine Albanese two years ago. During his tenure, he served as president and vice president of the board along with a stint on the board of the Lehigh Career and Technical Institute.
"You shouldn't be throwing away experience like that," Rutt said.
Rutt said he was discouraged by what he called an ugly debate the board had in selecting Hahn's replacement before appointing Knorr. While the boards of the past had disagreements, he said, they were always respectful and worked to find a consensus. He vowed to continue his advocacy for the tax payer, saying the job of a school board director is to balance the community's financial capacity with the need to provide students with a quality education.
While the districts facilities are old, he pointed to improvements he and the board have approved, including installing interactive whiteboards in the classroom and providing laptops to students. Some of these changes helped the district adapt more quickly when the pandemic forced remote learning.
"Everybody understood we have limitations, and we worked around them," Rutt said, noting the district lacks the resources of the Easton, Nazareth and Bethlehem communities. "We can't build any Taj Mahals around here."
Mouisset, an office manager for the Wind Gap Municipal Authority, said she wants to create a more transparent and consistent district. Most families today have two working parents, and what free time they have is often spent shuttling their children to extracurricular activities. Board members, she said, need to be more accessible and make a greater effort for outreach with the community.
While she praised the district's handling of its finances, Mouisset said she would work to keep the board fiscally responsible in the years ahead. Pen Argyl has approved a housing complex with 276 units south of Evergreen Cemetery, meaning the district will need to provide services to more families in the near future.
She added that she would want the district to preemptively review books in the library and curriculum. She said children should not have access to sexually inappropriate materials through their schools. She was not aware of any complaints within the district, but pointed similar efforts from parents and other groups across the country and the Lehigh Valley.
"I want us looking at it proactively instead of reactively," Mouisset said. "If it's an issue around us, odds are it's going to become one."
