Controversy and conspiracies dominate this Pa. school district after extremist takeover

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The takeover of the Oley Valley school board began in 2021.

And with it came incident after incident of controversy and extremism.

Two board members used homophobic and transphobic language while arguing against new anti-discrimination rules. Then, the board canceled a contract with the American Red Cross due to a right-wing conspiracy theory around illegal immigration. And some residents were outraged after discovering the garage door of a newly appointed board member depicted a faded swastika and the words “Heil Hitler” for years. She said she would resign — then didn’t.

Since the pandemic, school boards nationwide have become ground zero for shifts in politics. Concerned over mask mandates, virtual learning, vaccines, and more, an influx of people ran for local school boards to influence curricula and operations. These new candidates sometimes held extreme ideologies and received support from groups such as Moms for Liberty, which targeted school boards for right-wing takeovers.

That trend has fueled intense political conflict in conservative strongholds across Pennsylvania, and some community members are now rising up to counter the effects.

Souderton Area School District residents are petitioning for one of its Bucks County school board members to resign after he made a lewd remark on social media about Vice President Kamala Harris. In the neighboring Pennridge School District, residents formed the Ridge Network to fight against the right-wing policies pursued by their school board. Their efforts succeeded in November 2023, when voters elected a Democratic majority.

And in Berks County, dozens of Oley Valley residents filed a lawsuit in June that called for at least one board member to resign. The lawsuit alleges, among other claims, that Republican board members met privately to select who would fill two empty spots on the board. Such a meeting could violate the state’s open public meetings law. The suit has since been amended to include the full Oley Valley school board.

“Being on the school board should not be about your political affiliation or national politics,” said Oley Valley parent Rachel Winterstine, one of 26 petitioners on the lawsuit. “It should be about the kids in the school and just doing the right thing for teachers and our students.”

The defendants, through their attorney, said the case has no merit. Samuel Cortes, a managing partner at Fox Rothschild in Exton, told Spotlight PA he will seek to have it dismissed.

As Spotlight PA reported this story, which is the most comprehensive account to date of the crisis affecting the Oley school board, two board members — Aaron Keller and Sharon Kershner — resigned for “deeply personal reasons,” board President Jamie Freed said Oct. 16 after accepting their resignations. They are among the four board members who have resigned this year alone.

A shift in Oley

While one Oley Valley resident says there’s long been an undercurrent of intolerance and bigotry in the community, another resident said there was a balance of power on the school board before the shift.

Board business went smoothly, and members weren’t making headlines, Winterstine said. Prior members trusted teachers and administrators as experts in the field and didn’t micromanage, residents have commented during board meetings.

That began to change following the 2021 school board election.

Aaron Keller, Maria Bogdanova-Peifer, and Zachary Fatkin ran as a conservative slate, with Candice Corle as a write-in. The race took on a different tone from the past as the candidates seized on concerns over “transparency” in how the district was being run.

While Fatkin pledged to bring “cooperation, collaboration, and transparency” to the board, Keller and Bogdanova-Peifer stoked fear about Oley Valley’s curriculum, claiming students were learning “critical racist theory” and that parents must prevent “further erosion” of their rights. They also said they wanted to change the district’s curriculum and public health requirements.

Six people ran for four open board seats in 2021. Fatkin earned the most votes, at 2,212, followed by Keller with 2,156 votes, Bogdanova-Peifer with 1,979 votes, and incumbent board member Dawn Zackon with 1,618 votes.

Shortly after taking office, Keller and Bogdanova-Peifer followed through on their campaign rhetoric, expressing opposition to following federal laws prohibiting discrimination of students’ gender identity and sexual orientation, commonly known as Title IX.

“There’s two genders. Just two,” Keller said in a January 2022 board meeting. “That’s it. I don’t know why this has to be in to accommodate anything.”

Keller also suggested hiring a transgender or nonbinary employee would endanger students.

“We hire somebody that’s walking around with our kids that might be questionable to some parents because of some genetic quote-unquote things that he or she thinks they are,” he said.

The board ultimately approved the updated Title IX policy in a 6-3 board vote, with Keller and Bogdanova-Peifer in opposition. The board members’ remarks led to calls for them to resign. The pair later appeared on religious activist Rick Crump’s national show to defend their actions.

Kaiya Lyons, a 2009 graduate of Oley Valley and civil rights attorney, said during a board meeting on Jan. 19, 2022 that intolerance and bigotry in the community shaped her life and career.

And based on the board members’ comments, nothing had changed, Lyons concluded.

The board members’ opposition to the new regulations resembled claims made by Moms for Liberty. The extreme right-wing group bills itself as a parental rights organization and has chapters across the country, including in Berks County. A Spotlight PA email to the Berks chapter seeking comment for this story did not receive a response.

The group filed a federal lawsuit to block the implementation of the new Title IX regulations in schools across the country, including more than 100 in Pennsylvania. In July, a court in Kansas ruled in the group’s favor, ordering that the federal government can’t enforce the new protections. The Department of Justice has appealed the decision.

The Oley Valley School District is not currently included in that lawsuit, but some schools in Bucks County are.

In 2023, the Oley Valley board shifted further to the right. The election of Jamie Freed, Mary Harris, Sharon Kershner, and Corle — the latter a Moms for Liberty-backed candidate — solidified a conservative majority voting bloc.

Republicans swept the race in the conservative county, with Kershner, Freed, Harris, Corle, and Benjamin Raker capturing seats on the school board. The election was close, with just 315 votes separating Corle from her nearest competitor.

One resident embraced this shift during a March 13 meeting, commenting that everyone just needs a chance to get to know each other.

Ed Trimbur said he was “surprised that the pitchforks and the torches” have come out so early from both people in the community and those connected to the board.

“I firmly believe we have a great board here if you guys give them a chance and get to know them,” Trimbur said.

He continued: “You’re going to find out that they have more in common with you than you think. They want you to succeed, which is going to let our kids succeed, and they want to do it in a way that’s financially responsible to those of us who have to pay our taxes to support this stuff.”

In an interview with Spotlight PA, Winterstine argued that many people who voted for the conservative school board members are older, don’t have kids in school, and aren’t clued into what is going on at Oley Valley. About 35% of the community is between the ages of 50 and 69, a demographic that is unlikely to have children in the schools and tends to vote regularly.

Another resident expected the Republican board members to be responsible and reasonable in their approach.

“I really want to trust my school board. I look to you guys to take care of my kids, to take care of my community. And I have to be honest, I’m so disappointed,” said resident Mary Young during the April 17 school board meeting.

She added, “I don’t think we’re looking for extremism. I don’t think that we’re looking to push people away out of our community, or marginalize people.”

Spark ignites opposition

As the conservative faction grew, board members considered increasingly extreme measures such as hiring armed guards, arming teachers, and banning books. They have micromanaged administrators and teachers, pushed out school leaders, and “fractured” the community, those dissatisfied with the board said.

In April 2023, board member Mary Lou Parry resigned because she said the board was letting “political and petty biases … dominate their thinking.” But one particular decision by the board earlier this year led to more people pushing back.

In February, the board canceled a contract with the American Red Cross because some members believed a conspiracy pushed by national Republican politicians, including former President Donald Trump, that nonprofits like the aid group are “facilitating illegal immigration.”

“The Red Cross may be well-intentioned, but it is … exasperating the flow of migrants to the border and endangering the lives of those involved,” Mary Harris, one of the board members, said during a Feb. 14 meeting.

Harris, reached by phone on Oct. 3, declined to comment for this story.

The vote stunned some parents.

“It was just so disgusting,” Winterstine said. “It was as if Oley was right next to the Mexican border and we were getting invaded.”

In April, two board members — Zachary Fatkin and Benjamin Raker — as well as Oley Valley Superintendent Gina Finnerty announced they were resigning. While Finnerty said she was leaving for another job opportunity, some residents believe the tension between the board and administration was a driving force. Finnerty could not be reached for comment. In a 5-4 vote last month, Aaron Weston was appointed as superintendent.

Raker said he was moving out of the district, and it’s unclear why Fatkin left. He did not respond to a Spotlight PA request for comment.

When the two board members resigned, they left the Oley Valley board with only seven out of nine seats filled. On May 8, the board appointed Christina Moyer and Zachary Moore to fill those seats. (The next school board election is in 2025.)

Some residents challenged Moyer’s appointment from the beginning. But community members were outraged after a swastika and the words “Heil Hitler” were found on her garage, which faces Oley Valley High School. Moyer claimed the graffiti was on the garage when she purchased her home and that she hadn’t had time to paint over it because she was a single mother.

About two weeks after Moyer joined the board, she told the board president she would resign after complaints from residents. They questioned her qualifications and were concerned about the extreme political views she might harbor. Moyer never resigned, and the following month, the school board censured her for the Nazi symbols and rhetoric on her property and asked her to apologize.

On June 10, over two dozen Oley Valley parents filed a lawsuit against Moyer seeking her removal.

The petitioners have since amended that complaint, filed in the Court of Common Pleas of Berks County, alleging that on May 4, board member Bogdanova-Peifer held a private “meet and greet” event at her “barn” at the request of Berks County Republican East Region Chair Christine Neiman. The purpose of the event, according to the suit, was for the “conservative” members of the board to meet Neiman’s “hand-picked” candidates to fill the vacancies.

The amended complaint alleges Bogdanova-Peifer, Corle, Harris, and Kershner met with Neiman and her preferred candidates, Moyer and Melissa Kramer, “in an inappropriate, unlawful, secretive meeting for the purpose of rigging the selection process of candidates to fill the school board director vacancies.”

Four days later, all four directors voted the same way to fill the two seats. Their first pick was Moore, and their second was Moyer. (When the board took a roll call of potential candidates at that meeting, Kramer was not mentioned.).

Emails and calls to Neiman and the Berks County Republican Committee seeking comment for this story were not returned. Repeated attempts by Spotlight PA to request interviews or comments from Bogdanova-Peifer, Corle, Harris, Kershner, and Moyer were declined or did not receive a response.

Aaron Keller, who did not attend the alleged meeting but was reportedly invited, did not respond to messages seeking comment. On Oct. 11, Keller — part of the original conservative slate elected in 2021 — resigned. Reached by phone Oct. 15, Keller declined to comment on his reason for leaving.

Board President Jamie Freed said he had not seen the amended complaint and had no comment. In an email response to questions from Spotlight PA, Freed confirmed he was invited to the meeting but did not attend.

The attorney representing the petitioners, Jessica Garter, said all of the parents involved want Bogdanova-Peifer, Corle, Harris, Kershner, and Moyer to resign, but they will drop the suit if only Moyer resigns.

The Pennsylvania Constitution says that elected officials cannot be removed from office unless they are convicted of “misbehavior in office or of any infamous crime.” State legal experts say an elected official could agree to resign outside the legal process, but it’s up to the individual, not the full board.

“The fact that these four people met in private to have a yes-person put on the board to do whatever it is that their little agenda wants them to do is not right, and we’ve had it,” Garter said. “Our children deserve better.”

Legal questions remain

The very issue that brought the conservative slate to power in Oley Valley — transparency — could be the downfall of at least some of them, should a court so choose.

Board member appointments must be transparent since the directors are “stepping into the shoes” of the voters and voting on their behalf, said Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, of which Spotlight PA is a member.

Whether this meeting violated the Sunshine Act depends on whether there was a “quorum” of board members and if there was any deliberation during the gathering, Melewsky said.

The May 4 meeting was allegedly attended by four of the seven board members at the time, which would constitute a quorum by state law. Garter said she has text messages confirming the alleged meeting and plans to subpoena several people who could provide context around the issue.

If the court determines a violation occurred, Melewsky said, a judge could issue an injunctive relief prohibiting “certain conduct and impose penalties” if they aren’t followed. The court can also impose financial penalties like court costs and attorney fees if the agency accused is found to have violated the law, she added.

Melewsky said the court could also “invalidate any official action that took place in violation of the law.” So in theory, the petitioners asking the court to determine Moyer’s appointment as invalid is a possibility.

“If a court found a violation, it could rescind that appointment,” she said, adding that it’s rare but possible. “It is not something that is required, but the court has that option.”

Oley Valley school board member Dawn Zackon said she was neither aware of nor invited to the alleged May meeting. Zackon, who has been on the board since 2013, said the board has “accomplished nothing” since December. Her term ends in 2025, and in an email to Spotlight PA, Zackon said she does not plan on running again.

“We have lost focus of the students — it’s very sad,” she said. “My focus is students first, so it’s very frustrating for me that this board can’t seem to be transparent. They can’t seem to get their act together.”

Zachary Moore, who was one of the two appointed to the board in May, said the discord between board members and the community hasn’t helped the district’s optics. But the district’s overall operations hadn’t appeared to have changed much, he said.

“From what I can see right now, there has not been any negative impact on the students,” Moore told Spotlight PA. “But also, it would be a lot easier if things were smoother and the community was trusting and content in the direction we are moving.”

Despite the pushback and the lawsuit, the board’s majority has support in the district.

Oley Valley resident Cynthia Smith, who made disparaging remarks about Antietam School District students in December, criticized people speaking out against the Oley Valley board for their “uninformed accusations” during an April 17 board meeting. She said the public should be more outraged over previous board actions and blunders on superintendent contracts.

“They are doing everything they can to bring in the press, stir up the teachers, and bring a divide to the district,” Smith said of the residents criticizing the board.

Later in her comment, she advised, “For all those sitting in the audience complaining, you have a lot to learn.”

Zackon, who ran for school board in 2013 in honor of her husband who was an Oley Valley superintendent, said it would break his heart to see the focus on students lost. The board member’s husband died in 2011 while on a class trip in Switzerland.

The previous board makeup was able to get things done and kept their focus, Zackon said.

But “this board has a totally different agenda,” she said.

“It’s about the board. It’s about their agenda and their politics.”

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