On Dec. 4, the East Penn School Board officially welcomed three new members to the board during their organization meeting. Gabrielle Klotz, Shonta Ford, and Tim Kelly all won seats, along with returning board members Joshua Levinson and Jeffery Jankowski. Levinson will continue to serve as president, as in his previous term. This marks the beginning of Levinson’s third term as president of the board. Adam Smith was elected Vice President. Both votes were unanimous.
Following the elections on Nov. 7, unofficial results were released continuously until the following day, upon which multiple news outlets, including The Stinger, confirmed the projected winners. Levinson, Jankowski, Klotz, Ford, and Kelly all ran on a bipartisan slate, in opposition to an all-Republican slate, known as Your Voice on the Board.
Levinson, along with the other candidates, looks forward to continuing in his role as a board member.
“We are very grateful to the voters for allowing us to serve for the next four years and we are looking forward to working together with the rest of the board and the administration on behalf of our community,” Levinson said in an email to The Stinger. “We are focused on addressing the many challenges within the district and on ensuring that we have excellent schools and programs here in East Penn.“
Pennsylvania requires that all new board members undergo five hours of training within a year of their election, and re-elected members must complete three hours of training in the same time frame per Pennsylvania law, according to the Pennsylvania School Board Association (PSBA).
In addition to these standards, the school board will also hold an orientation session for new board members, according to Levinson.
“During this session, new members will meet several district administrators and learn about key work in each department,” Levinson said. He also added that new members will be given information that will “help guide them towards being a successful board member.”
Several community members spoke during the public comment period, congratulating the board members on their win in the election, particularly Shonta Ford, the first Black woman to serve on the board.
“It’s a historic moment – representation matters,” Imogen Wirth, a 1999 EHS alumni, said.
The next election for school board candidates will be in November of 2025, when four seats will be up for election.