Meeting to appoint new Penns Valley school board member turns heated. Here’s why

Penns Valley appointed a new board member during a tense special voting meeting Monday night that saw community members question the appointment policy and board members argue over the process.

Former board candidate Karla Groy was elected to the board by a 5-3 vote, after three rounds of deadlocked voting. Groy was one of three candidates, alongside Molly Miller and Edward Delaney, who were interviewed by the board before voting. The board nominated and voted for each candidate with all motions failing before a fourth and final vote for Groy passed.

The board’s ninth seat became vacant after Lisa Bierlein announced her resignation at a Jan. 4 board meeting, citing her dissatisfaction with the board and supporting Miller, who ran for a school board seat in November as part of The Valleys’ Voice group and lost by only eight votes.

Bierlein wasn’t the only person pulling for Miller ahead of Monday’s meeting. A post on a local community Facebook group asked community members to email the board and urge them to vote for Miller. Before voting, board members Dan Hall and Kim Kellerman-Domin, who both ran as members of The Valleys’ Voice with Miller, said the board should vote for Miller based on the close election results.

“If you don’t vote for Molly, you have proven exactly what the citizens of Penns Valley have been saying for years,” Hall said. “That this board does not care what the citizens desire and they do what they want to do.”

Other board members disagreed, saying community opinions could have changed and the appointment process policy was not based on previous election results. Board member Marcia Kimler said the board was following the appointment process laid out by board policy and the Pennsylvania School Code.

“It’s important to remember that the policy that’s been set before us and we have no way of knowing if these three applicants were put in an election — we have no way of knowing how that election would turn out,” Kimler said.

Board members serve four-year terms and are elected in November, but when boards fill a vacancy outside of an election cycle, it’s done by appointment. Unlike board seats in elections, which are chosen democratically, the vacant board seat is decided by the already appointed school directors.

Under section 315 of the PA School Code, once a director leaves the board, whether due to death, resignation, or moving out of the district, the remaining board members have 30 days to fill the seat.

Groy will serve until the next board election in 2025, according to the Pennsylvania School Board Association.