1991 candidates were right for East Penn
In an Oct. 15 Your View, Jane Ervin urged voters not to make “mistakes” in their votes for East Penn School Board. She found fault with the decision to not build a new high school back in 1992, and suggested the idea that the current school board will build a new high school in the hinterlands of the district next to a warehouse is a good idea.
She likened both us “Common Sense” candidates back in 1991 and the 2023 Republican Your Voice On The Board slate as “religious far-right” candidates sowing “distrust and division” in the community.
I found her analysis of past and current events to be a disjointed cacophony of anger, accusations, factual errors and non-sequiturial innuendos. Here’s why:
I became vice president of the school board back in 1992 after running with the “Common Sense” slate, which won the 1991 election with an astounding 70% turnout in a nonpresidential election year. The chief mandate was to renovate the high school, and build Lower Macungie Middle School to alleviate crowding, as opposed to building a new high school in the cornfields, a non-walkable community option. This decision turned out to be the perfect solution, saving the district major dollars while being both effective and efficient educationally.
Back then, East Penn was an educational magnet as one of the best districts in the state, with both exceptional students and overall challenging curriculum. We have been losing that distinction steadily since then.
The declining standard seem to be only accelerating with the current school board, whose members are running for reelection. Shockingly, Lower Macungie Middle School is, as of last year, on the state Department of Education’s Targeted Support and Improvement list, the same lack of distinction that inner city Philadelphia schools have.
What have the sitting school board members done about this? What ideas have come out of the teachers union? Back in 1993, we were one of the only districts to try to implement teacher performance pay, only to be out-gamed by the politicized teachers union, who supported Ervin. Educational incentive pay would probably not go over well with the current teachers union now either for obvious reasons.
So do we need a new high school now? Let’s look at enrollment figures. I asked the superintendent for the student enrollment numbers going back to 1993, when we started the high school renovations, under the Right To Know law. I was partially denied the request (the district said it was not required to create a record that does not exist or to compile, maintain, format or organize a record in a manner in which it does not currently do so), but given the numbers back to 2007-08.
So, going by my recollections, we had somewhere over 7,700 students in 1993. This year we have 7,947 students, or a 3% increase over 30 years. The most recent enrollment study for the district projects a decline of 500 students to a gain of 200 in 2031.
The fertility of our district has declined steadily and any changes to our student population can be easily handled by renovations instead of building a new high school. I would trust school board candidates Paul Barbehenn and Kris Depaulo, who are certified public accountants, to handle the budget and major building expansions professionally.
Lastly, and very importantly, last year the current board decided to allow transgender students into the bathrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex. This new East Penn policy kind of flew under the radar. After all, who isn’t for the inclusion of all students. Anyone opposed to a
policy like this will be labeled a “far-right-wing religious zealot.” What does this do to raise educational standards in the failed middle school? Your Voice candidates would probably void this policy.
Because of the abject failure of the current school board on many levels, I will be voting for all of the “Your Voice” candidates. Failure to get all of them elected will mean more of the same in East Penn. The candidates are Paul Barbehenn, Angelica Schneider, Matt Mull, Kris DePaulo and Lawrence Huyssen.