Grass Roots Group Wants to Learn About East Penn Schools

A forum scheduled for Jan. 25 with the superintendent of East Penn schools is meant to be a learning experience.

There is no set agenda for the roundtable discussion scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Emmaus Public Library conference room. And the grass roots group that organized the event doesn’t seem to have an agenda either.

Called East Penn Invested Citizens, or EPIC, the group emerged from the sudden realization that the East Penn School District is at a crisis point.

Noreen Yamamoto, one of the organizers of EPIC, and a parent to a Wescosville Elementary third grader, said, “Less than a year ago, we realized that there was a core group of people who attended every school board meeting, but those people didn’t necessarily have children in the schools.”

Yamamoto said that the group of about five core EPIC members were worried that there was not a balance of voices at the school board meetings when it came to how the district spent its money.

“Out of concern, we started taking turns attending the meeting,” Yamamoto said, “and we discovered the district is facing some very complicated choices that were often difficult to understand.”

For that reason, the group decided the first step was that they needed to be better informed, and in turn, wanted to inform the residents in the district, too.

But this is a grass roots organization more at the seed level right now. It is not a registered as a political organization, non-profit or in any way, for that matter.

According to Yamamoto, they are still working through what type of organization they want to be. They don’t want to be just a parent’s organization, she said. And they do want to remain nonpartisan, but with five seats on the school board open this year, it’s difficult to resist the temptation to endorse candidates.

“But that would makes us a political group, and we were trying to avoid that,” Yamamoto said.

She explained they want to model themselves after the League of Women Voters, which has a mission to encourage the active participation in government by voters, no matter their political affiliation.

“We would really like to see people running for school board who have the ability to understand these complex issues,” Yamamoto said, “yet it is difficult to ask anyone to run because it is a huge commitment to be on the school board.”

While the group continues to find its identity, Yamamoto said, they want to facilitate discussion between the school district and its residents.

“We are trying to get parents and voters educated about this crisis we have in our schools,” she said. “We think that good schools improves the community and that improves property values for everyone, whether those homeowners have children in the schools or not.”

The district’s administration was very willing to meet with the public, Yamamoto said, “and we’re hoping the [library] will be a setting that will encourage more dialogue than political argument.

The forum is open to the public and starts at 7 p.m. tonight, Jan. 18, at the Emmaus Public Library.

The panel includes Dr. Thomas Seidenberger, East Penn Superintendent; Dr. Denise Torma, Assistant Superintendent; Deb Surdoval, District Business Manager and Kristen Campbell, Assistant to the Superintendent.

NOTE: The discussion was originally scheduled for Jan. 18, but was postponed due to the weather.