Democrats in Elizabethtown Area school board race garner support from moderate Republicans

Getting votes as a Democrat in the heavily Republican community of Elizabethtown is an uphill battle – one that Democratic school board candidate Kristy Moore has been fighting for a few years now.

Moore has run in every school board race in Elizabethtown Area School District since 2019. And although she’s lost twice, her base of support has been growing. In 2019, she earned 2,470 of the 22,454 votes cast. In 2021, she earned 3,649 of the 28,981 votes cast. As a cross-filed candidate in the May primary this year, she received more votes than her fellow Democratic candidates.

“We’re definitely seeing progress,” Moore said.

Student parent Kristy Moore speaks to the Freedom Readers during a rally against book censorship before the Elizabethtown school board meeting on Tuesday, October 25, 2022.

Connor Hollinger | LNP Correspondent

This year, with voters increasingly energized and interested in the politics of education, some registered Republicans in Elizabethtown are planning to cast votes for the first full slate of Democratic school board candidates there in recent history.

Though Republicans hold a solid registration edge in the school district — 58.1% Republican, 26.9% Democrat, 15% independent — the party’s moderate and far-right Republicans don’t always see eye-to-eye.

In 2021, school board candidates James Emery and Stephen and Danielle Lindemuth won seats by taking an outspoken stance against masking and vaccines, critical race theory, classroom materials that address race and sex, as well as the inclusion of LGBTQ students.

Four years later, far-right Republicans pushing many of those same buttons elbowed more moderate GOP candidates out of the May primary.

Elizabethtown Area school board member Karen Sweigart ran in the primary under the banner “E-town Republicans for Education” after she was unable to obtain an endorsement from the Elizabethtown Area Republican Committee. She lost to the endorsed Republicans and will have to give up her seat on the board in 2024.

Earning an endorsement from the committee used to mean demonstrating your voting record and sitting for a short interview, but this time around, according to Sweigart, candidates had to fill out an extensive questionnaire and go through a series of interviews.

“There was an attitude of conspiracy,” Sweigart said. “There was absolutely no trust, and questions were sort of leaned toward that type of conspiracy that teachers were trying to sexualize the kids and the books were sexualizing the kids and were not to be trusted. It was very insulting.”

Because the GOP committee is pushing misinformation and she wants qualified individuals on the school board, Sweigart said, she will vote for the Democratic candidates on Nov. 7.

Will the votes of disgruntled moderate Republicans be enough to change the makeup of the nine-member board? The northwest Lancaster County community will find out in a couple of weeks when Moore and her fellow “Support E-town Schools” candidates – Dwight Eichelberger, Karin Laszakovits, Sarah Zahn and Kelly Fuddy – face Republican candidates running on the “E-town Wins” slate – Tina Wilson, Kelly Carter, Menno Riggelman, Lynda Shrum and James Gilles.

“I don’t know what else I can do,” Moore said. “We’re trying to do everything we can to make sure we’re successful in November. I’m thinking about our families. I’m thinking about our community. And I think it will be to their greatest benefit if it’s the Supporting E-town School candidates (who win).”

The decision ultimately is up to Republicans.

“I don’t think nearly as many Republicans in our community espouse those same views,” Moore said. “I just don’t think (the Republican candidates) represent the majority of Republicans, but the culture in Elizabethtown is to vote straight ticket.”

Republican contempt ‘doesn’t bode well’

Elizabethtown Area Republican Committee Chair Nicky Woods did not respond to a request for an interview. Carter, Wilson, Gilles and Shrum declined an interview request. Riggelman could not be reached for comment.

Gilles sent a joint statement from the Republican candidates via text.

“In our conversations with voters, we have found they are looking for assiduous school directors who will work carefully with their tax dollars,” Gilles wrote. “We want to plan for the district’s upcoming projects in a way that makes sense to the community and is the most cost-effective. … Elizabethtown residents understand the commitment to invest in the future of our students as long as we can show we are being fiscally responsible and are providing an education focused on fundamentals.”

The candidates also declined to respond to a questionnaire for the LNP | LancasterOnline voters guide, published Oct. 18.

“Since the start of the primary, I have elected to not respond to questionnaires regarding my standing with respect to school board issues,” Gilles wrote in an email.

Carter and Shrum cited a desire to connect with voters one-on-one rather than through the media.

Additionally, Elizabethtown Area Education Association President Jim Safford said the teachers union invited the candidates to fill out questionnaires, and Woods sent back an emoji that indicates laughing so hard it brings one to tears. The candidates declined to fill out the union’s questionnaire, saying they don’t respond to questionnaires given by any institution.

Safford said teachers in the union – which has more than 300 members, a majority of whom are Republican – were upset by the response by the Republican candidates.

“It does not bode well for the future,” Safford said.

The candidates, in a joint statement from Gilles, indicated a desire to work with teachers.

“We also want to continue to attract highly qualified teachers by listening to them and creating plans to support them well in the classroom,” Gilles wrote in the statement.

The Republican candidates similarly declined to participate in a forum hosted by the League of Women Voters. The Democratic candidates accepted the invitation but, as a nonpartisan organization, the League of Women Voters was unable to host the forum without the Republicans.

All of the Republican candidates, however, filled out the Pennsylvania Family Voter Guide questionnaire, disseminated by the Pennsylvania Family Institute.

“I can tell you, based on the crying laughing emoji and the dishonesty about having filled out questionnaires, it gives me pause,” Safford said. “I don’t want to rule out ever being able to work with them obviously, but it does cause me concern.”

The PA Family Institute is a state-level partner of the Family Research Council, which is designated as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

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Based on their responses to the Pennsylvania Family Institute voter guide, four of the five Republican candidates said they support providing state tax credits to enable parents to “choose what school their child attends.” Carter was the only candidate in opposition.

Earlier this year, the state budget was delayed due to skirmishes over funding vouchers to use taxpayer funds to send students to private schools, many of which teach conservative Christian values.

All five of the Republican candidates, according to the Family Institute voter guide, support separating restrooms, locker rooms and other privacy areas based on biological sex as well as “reserving girls’ sports exclusively for biological females.”

In 2022, Hempfield School District became the first district in the state to enact a policy limiting transgender athletes to participating on sports teams aligned with their sex at birth, not their gender identity. Other districts, including Conestoga Valley and Manheim Township, have had discussions about their policies surrounding athletes and gender identity but haven’t made the rule that students must participate in sports based on their sex at birth.

Elizabethtown Area has not yet embarked on a policy change of that nature, but the district has changed its library policy, Policy 109, to include a new rating system identifying mature content in books. Because of the policy, the district is currently reviewing the more than 46,000 books in its school libraries.

Members of the Freedom Readers rally against book censorship before the Elizabethtown school board meeting on Tuesday, October 25, 2022.

Connor Hollinger | LNP Correspondent

All five Republican candidates support specifying in school policy that materials “containing visual depictions of people engaging in sex acts or explicit written descriptions of people engaging in sex acts is not age-appropriate for the school’s curriculum and libraries,” according to the family voter guide.

“Absolutely inappropriate,” Wilson added in the notes section of the questionnaire. “Vulgar and or pornographic (sic) have no place in a school library.”

Wilson, according to the E-town Wins website, has a background in insurance and human resources. Described as a conservative Christian patriot and avid campaigner for Republican candidates, Wilson runs a small business from home and serves as the judge of elections in Elizabethtown Borough.

In 2022, Wilson requested that the district remove the best-selling novel “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” from its high school and middle school library. In her request, Wilson said “there is very little of value in this book.” Then-Superintendent Michele Balliet and a committee assembled to review the book recommended the school board deny the request, and the board did so in a 6-3 vote by the board.

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Other statements in the questionnaire, such as “requiring teachers to use ‘she’ to describe a biological male student who identifies as a female,” “allowing school personnel to refer students to abortion providers” and “providing curricula that advocates critical race theory and its emphasis on defining people as oppressors or oppressed based on group identity” received responses of opposition from the five Republican candidates.

Carter, however, was undecided on requiring teachers to use a student’s preferred pronoun.

According to the E-town Wins website, Carter has a degree in elementary and early childhood education with a specialization in math and science from Rowan University. Gilles worked 20 years at Three Mile Island after 12 years serving in the Navy.

The slate of Republicans is running on a commitment to “ABC IT,” or with a focus on accountability, budget, curriculum, integrity and transparency, according to the E-town Wins website. Despite declining to respond to questionnaires from several groups, the slate promises to listen and respond to all of its community members regardless of their views.

Riggelman is the only candidate from both slates to have served on the board, having been elected for one term from 2018-2022.

During his previous campaign in 2017, he said in an interview with the Elizabethtown Area High School student newspaper, the Elizabethtown Expression, that homosexuality was a sin and teaching the theory of Darwinism is outdated.

Riggelman, who owns a repair service business in Elizabethtown, did not respond to a request for comment on his previous statements.

‘We’ve done a lot of good’

Support E-town Schools promises on its website to put people over politics, to make fiscally responsible decisions and to preserve the freedom to read and learn. Boasting varied backgrounds that include public teaching, social work and health care, as well as regular attendance at school board meetings, the Democrats said their experience on the board would make for a seamless transition following the general election.

Elizabethtown school board president Terry Seiders speaks during a meeting on Tuesday, October 25, 2022.

Connor Hollinger | LNP Correspondent

Regardless of who wins in November, not a single incumbent will be elected to the school board. Four of the five board members up for reelection chose not to run, and Sweigart, the only incumbent up for reelection, lost in the primaries. With them, the district loses more than 60 years of institutional knowledge, said board President Terry Seiders.

“It certainly has an opportunity to present challenges,” Seiders said.

Seiders, who said he’s been blessed with school board members who value public education during his 17-year tenure, chose not to run for reelection because he felt school board meetings have been dominated by highly politicized cultural issues rather than a focus on improving the district for its students.

“We’ve done a lot of good,” Seiders said. “I just hope that the next board gets on and continues that and has the value of public education for our students. If they don’t, if they do things that are detrimental to the education system, then the citizens need to rise up and say, ‘That’s not what our expectations are.’ ”

Though Seiders is a registered Republican, he said he’s voting for the Democratic candidates and urges the community to do their research before voting.

“Don’t just pull the ticket because you’re a Republican,” Seiders said. “Not all Republicans are the right person for the job, not all Democrats are the right person for the job. You have to look and be independent in your viewpoint as a voter and choose the quality candidate that represents your values.”

He said his opinions on the candidates are largely based on hearing from them during public comment at school board meetings. While he said candidates like Moore ask intelligent questions and consider all the information present when issues arise, he said some of the Republican candidates have made up issues and done things that have no value to public education.

“We’ve seen them demean our teachers, we’ve seen them not respond to a willingness to (have them) explain their positions during an election that is contentious,” Seiders said. “You would think if you’re a quality candidate, you would want to debate and prove why you’re the better candidate. But what they’ve chosen to do is stand firm on their endorsement by the Republican Party.

“If you’re not doing this for students, and you’re doing this for political purposes, you are in the wrong business,” Seiders said.

Lifelong Republican Lisa Heilner, whose father was once the Elizabethtown Area Republican Committee chair, said she, too, is casting her votes in favor of the Democrats. The Mount Joy Township Supervisor said her views are her own and not representative of the township.

“I’m concerned with lack of education” from the Republican candidates, said Heilner. “I know you can be a well-rounded citizen without higher education, but I do value that because it changes your thinking and makes you a more critical thinker.”

She said she’s concerned the Republicans hold extremist views on religion. As a Christian herself, she believes such beliefs should be taught in the home.

The Republicans are “very exclusive,” Heilner said. “They exclude certain people who don’t necessarily align with what their beliefs are.”

Heilner said she fears voters may not be informed enough to select the candidates who are best for the community.

‘Public education is the foundation of democracy’

Fuddy, who first ran for a spot on the school board in 2017, said it’s been frustrating for her to see board members elected who don’t understand the role.

Kelly Fuddy talks about the Elizabethtown Freedom Readers Group’s efforts while sitting next to her library on the porch of her Elizabethtown home Friday, May 13, 2022. Fuddy is holding a copy of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

BLAINE SHAHAN | Staff Photographer

“There are some greater forces at play that are driving and trying to just sow chaos in these meetings,” Fuddy said. “And I regret that the last three years, it’s taken away from the ability of the board to focus on the business, the thing to focus on for our district. It’s taken a lot of energy just to tolerate people’s behaviors and questioning.”

She and the other Democratic candidates often joke, Fuddy said, that their goal is to make school boards boring again.

“Yes, we are registered as Democrats, but we have no plan to take any other agenda than what is best for our students and our parents and our taxpayers and everyone working together,” Fuddy said. “Because our kids, all of our kids, are our treasure of our community and we need to support them.”

At one point, Fuddy said, she wanted to be a public school teacher, and even though she’s now a health care chaplain at Penn State Health, she will always remain a strong advocate for public education.

“I went to E-town – I thrived there,” Fuddy said, adding that she ran in 2017 because “running for school board and serving in that way to preserve and enhance our local schools through whatever powers the school boards have to do was valuable.”

This year, that inspiration remains, but she said she also wanted to run to give voters in Elizabethtown a choice other than the Republican candidates.

“Public education is the foundation of democracy,” Fuddy said.

Like Fuddy, Laszakovits said she is concerned about providing the community with a diverse selection of candidates and a diverse school board. Laszakovits, a licensed clinical social worker in Lower Dauphin School District, said she hopes to see Elizabethtown Area School District continue to work to improve its social and emotional learning curriculum rather than strip it away.

“Kids need to be in a learning environment where the culture is not tolerant of sexist, racist, homophobic behavior,” Laszakovits said. “Kids need to know that they can be who they are in school, which of course follows school expectations.”

Zahn wants not only a safe environment for kids, but the teachers as well. Part of why she ran both in 2021 and now is because she wants to preserve the positive aspects of Elizabethtown.

“I was disappointed to hear people coming out and berating teachers and speaking against policy and starting to bring this more extreme view to the school board,” Zahn said. “I wanted to be a voice of reason and be an advocate for teachers. I wanted to celebrate the good things and bring up positive things. That’s really what kept me going was to be a counter voice to all of the awful things that were being said.”

For example, during the public comment portion of a January school board meeting, Wilson quoted a New York Post story reporting that 269 public educators in the United States had been arrested on child sex-related crimes in the first nine months of 2022 and said “Why are our teachers suddenly looking at our students as sexual beings instead of children? And obviously, that is not across the board, before anybody says it. It’s just some of them obviously are.”

That comment prompted Safford to speak during a public comment period for the first time at a board meeting in February. Safford has been president of the union for over a year but has been a member for over 20 years.

“That really stuck in the craw of a lot of my members,” Safford said. “I got up and said, ‘You should really be worried about what you’re saying about teachers because we are in a teacher shortage and who wants to go to work at a place where you’re being questioned about being a pedophile or grooming children.’ ”

Moore is a teacher at Hempfield School District, though her opinions as a candidate do not represent those of the school district. She said she’s running because the board needs to have a teacher’s voice.

“It would be one voice of nine that could shed some light on some things that (the board members) aren’t aware of because they’re not in the classroom,” Moore said. “They’re not the boots on the ground.”

Even when negotiating teacher contracts, she said her position as a teacher wouldn’t be a conflict of interest because she doesn’t work in the district and any increase in funding that could result in an increase in taxes would affect her as equally as any other taxpayer in the district.

Part of the reason Eichelberger ran for school board was to ensure the district maintains adequate funding to continue delivering a quality education for students.

“When people are looking to move into the area, quality in schools is a huge factor in determining move-ins, and that in turn translates to property values,” Eichelberger said. “You can be penny wise on property tax rates and pound foolish in terms of the value of your property.”

Whether a board is arguing over taxes or building projects, it should still be an argument about what’s best for the community and students rather than over political or religious beliefs, Seiders said.

To him, the Democrat candidates have what it takes to be on the school board.

“I see them as people who are dealing with situations that involve education of our students, the community as a whole and what’s best for that community,” Seiders said. “I see them dealing with those issues and asking questions about those issues. I don’t see them dealing with politics or religion.”