School Board Candidates Meet at Public Forum

For the most part Thursday night, candidates for the East Penn School Board agreed to agree.

At a forum held at the Eyer Middle School the 11 candidates for five open seats were asked about taxes, the district’s budget crisis, program cuts, the teachers union wage-freeze offer, teacher’s pay and benefits, charter schools, vouchers and the state education budget.

Most of the candidates agreed they would not cut vital educational programs or valued extracurricular programs.

Kenneth Bacher said he would not support cuts to programs that “contribute to a well-rounded education,” like art, music or athletics.

John F. Belin, School Board President Charles H. Ballard, Lynn Donches, Jennifer Gilbert, Phillip Garrett Rhoades and Waldemar  R. Vinovskis all stressed that cuts should be in non-academic areas.

Ballard and Vinovskis suggested cuts in transportation.

Rhoades suggested auditing the district’s purchasing agreements for unnecessary costs.

Brian Higgins also suggested looking for hidden costs and numerous smaller cuts throughout the budget.

Scott Aquila said he would look across the board for cuts in “programs, facilities and personnel.”

Incumbent Samuel Rhodes the board should take a look at all programs. “Put them on the table and discuss them,” he said. 

Incumbent Julian Stolz suggested looking for economies during collective bargaining and criticized putting money in reserve that could be used in the budget.

Donches, who urged transparency in the district, and Gilbert, Rhoades and Vinovskis complained of a lack of detailed budget information on the district’s website.

Some of the candidates were asked about arts education. Stolz said the arts should get as much emphasis as athletics. Higgins said that, while he is involved in and values youth athletics, it was his drama education that allowed him to get up in front of an audience. Rhodes and Ballard both spoke of the lasting effects of music education on their sons.

The format of the forum, which was sponsored by East Penn Invested Citizens and the East Penn Chamber of Commerce, called for several questions to be posed to pairs of candidates, leaving little opportunity for all of the candidates to respond to a single question.

One question that was posed to all the candidates was, should they accept money from outside the district?

Only Stolz defended the practice, saying it was the law. However, he criticized allowing public employee unions to contribute to campaigns. Vinovskis took the opposite view. “Absolutely not,” he said.

Rhoades, Ballard and Belin said they would not accept outside money, with Belin saying his only expense would be a campaign letter he would distribute door-to-door. They all questioned the propriety of outside contributions.

Donches, Gilbert and Aquila each said family and friends from outside the district should be able to support them. Donches stressed that the contributions would be reported and be a public record. Aquila joked that his grandmother sent him $2.

Rhodes, Higgins and Bacher said they would accept no money for their campaigns.

What was a friendly forum became a little less cordial when candidates were able to ask questions of each other.

Ballard questioned Stolz about a Facebook post in which he said Stolz wrote that he had been “attacked, slandered and smeared” by organizations that he held in contempt. He asked Stolz to identify the organizations.

Stolz eventually said his comments were directed at some members of the PSEA in East Penn.

Stolz then asked Ballard why he was quoted in Patch as calling charter schools an “educational rathole.”  Ballard said that he had been referring to cyber charter schools, which he said were more expensive and less effective than district schools.

Stolz said later that he was “shaken and taken aback” by Ballard’s question and that it detracted from other issues.

He said his Facebook comments were months old and that he didn’t remember the exact wording and could no longer find them. “I probably thought better of it and deleted them,” he said.

The primary election is on May 17.