Democrats sweep most highly-contested Lehigh Valley school board contests

• Democratic slates appear to win in unofficial results in East Penn, Southern Lehigh and Parkland school board races
• Northampton County Moms for Liberty endorsed candidates likely picked up two seats on the Nazareth school board
• Both political parties say they had the right messaging for the election

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Candidates on Democratic slates appear to have swept some of the most contentious school board races in the Lehigh Valley.

But it wasn't a complete rout — in Northampton County, two candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty likely won election to the Nazareth Area school board.

In the East Penn, Parkland and Southern Lehigh election contests, bipartisan slates of Democrats and Republicans joined forces to oppose more conservative slates and succeeded with the Democratic ticket.

“I think that we were very strong in our messaging,” said Lori McFarland, chair of the Lehigh County Democratic Committee.

Focused messaging

Southern Lehigh school board incumbent Emily Gehman, whose slate of one Democrat and four Republicans won, said their message was about keeping the professionals as the experts.

“Our message was, we believe in teachers and we want to support education and public education and students and we were putting students over politics," she said.

Conservative candidates in East Penn and Parkland denied having ties to Moms for Liberty or other right-wing groups during the campaign. In Lehigh County, the local Moms for Liberty chapter didn’t list endorsed candidates on its website, nor were there endorsements on the national website.

McFarland said Democrats were able to link the Republican slates to Moms for Liberty by pointing out how their platforms aligned with policies advocated by the national organization. Moms for Liberty is a Florida-based group initially founded in 2021 as a move to counter masking in schools during pandemic shutdowns.

“There were other connections that we made,” McFarland said. “That though they may not have sought or obtained their actual endorsement from Moms for Liberty, their policies and talking points were the same.”

Lehigh County Republican Committee Chair Joe Vichot said he believes the debate over abortion in state Supreme Court contest affected the school board races in Lehigh Valley. He said he believes his candidates worked tirelessly to get out the vote.

An 'honest race'

In East Penn, incumbents Jeffrey Jankowski, a Republican, and Joshua Levinson, a Democrat, created a "pro-education" slate with political newcomers Gabrielle Klotz and Shonta Ford, both Democrats, and Republican Timothy Kelly. They look to have defeated a Republican roster of political newcomers called "Your Voice on the Board": Paul Barbehenn, Kristofer DePaolo, Lawrence Huyssen, Matt Mull and Angelic Schneider.

"While the race did not go as I had hoped, this was a tremendous experience," Mull said in an emailed statement. "I learned so much in the last 9 months. While there are some things I would do differently, I can look my family in the eye knowing I ran an honest race, and stood by my principles.”

But some in the East Penn area Wednesday appeared to be struggling to accept the voting results. Local resident Vanessa Pummer Dorward posted on Levinson’s school board director Facebook page that the election “was rigged.”

“No one actually believes you are doing a good job,” Dorward wrote. “Sorry but I’m not sorry.”

In Southern Lehigh, the slate of one registered Democrat and four registered Republicans, Melissa Torba, Eric Boyer, Candi Kruse, Gehman and Tim Kearney, successfully took on a group that dubbed itself the “True Republicans,” according to unofficial results.

Members of the GOP slate, which consisted of Doug Durham, Paul Deebel, Danielle Roy, Lance Tittle, and James Pica, had vowed to enact certain policies if elected, including requiring board members to vote to overturn what it said is the district’s “policy of hiding gender identity information from parents and guardians” and mandating school officials notify parents and guardians of previously withheld information.

Torba, the Democrat, said the win meant voters took the time to research the candidates.

“It's nice to have faith in humanity,” she said. “Folks did their homework to understand better what a school board does, and who are the best candidates to represent their school districts.”

Durham said he would release a statement after the group's loss, but there was no response received by LehighValleyNews.com.

Looking ahead to 2024

By characterizing his candidates as looking to “ban books” rather than wanting to remove “pornography” from schools, Vichot said he thinks the rhetoric of Democratic slates in the local school races was overly negative. He said the parental rights agenda was still the right message.

"I just hope the Republican Party and the candidates for 2024 will have a more defined message to counteract the negativity that we keep experiencing on the Democrat machine when it comes to their ads and everything," he said.

The Parkland group that ultimately won the election included incumbents Carol Facchiano, Jay Rohatgi, Lisa Roth and Marisa Ziegler, as well as newcomer Chris Pirrotta. Facchiano and Roth are Republicans, and Pirrotta, Ziegler and Rohatgi are Democrats.

The group of Republican challengers defeated in Parkland were Mike Deering, Beth Finch, Natalie Janotka, Bobby Lanyon, Mike Millo and George Rivera.

Milo said in a statement, "Congratulations to all of the winners. I am proud of our message and effort but respect the voters. Until Republicans figure out the mail-in ballot system, I feel we will see these sorts of results well into future."

Moms for Liberty wins in Nazareth

The Northampton County Moms for Liberty chapter backed four school board candidates in Tuesday’s election: Melinda Gladstone and Elmo Frey Jr. on the Nazareth Area School Board were the only ones who won their races.

Frey said he believes voters liked his message of more parental involvement in how the district is educating children. “Parental rights” has become a prominent rallying call in school board races across the Valley and the nation.

“I think a lot of people are against a lot of this Critical Race Theory and “woke” stuff that not so much Nazareth is doing, but there's a lot of it out there,” he said.

Critical Race Theory, CRT, is an academic framework that examines how institutions perpetuate racism. It’s become a catch-all for some who believe any discussion of race and racism is divisive.

Frey and Gladstone accepted the endorsement of Northampton County Moms for Liberty. Frey said having the endorsement was a big help to his race.

“I'm registered as Republican," he said. "It's hard in a lot of districts to overcome because they have such large Democratic majority votes. It's hard to overcome that in some of the bigger cities. Nazareth has probably an equal amount of Democrats and Republicans, but some of the bigger cities are predominantly Democrats. So we're fortunate here that we have a lot of support from the Republican Party, as well as a lot from Democrats.”

Jeff Greener, who lost to Frey and Gladstone, said he was shocked at the election loss. He ran with fellow Democrat Sariann Knerr in Region I.

“I’ve already talked to my kids and you know, I'm worried for them,” he said. “I'm worried for their future and for their friends and what it is going to mean.”

Greener said he doesn’t recognize the community he grew up in.

“I'm not gonna give up, I'm still going to be at school board meetings, either in person or on Zoom as I have been,” he said. “I'm going to do the best I can to represent that there is still community out here that is worried for our kids.”

Reporters Jay Bradley and Olivia Marble contributed to this story.