A Question of Integrity
Some things every voter should know about the East Penn school board race.
Yesterday I shared that my reasons for recommending Levinson, Jankowski, Klotz, Kelly, and Ford for East Penn School Board mainly boil down to a matter of judgement. Today I wanted to share some sad-- and troubling-- information about their opponents that make the differences in judgment even more stark.
I'm talking now of the bloc of candidates being run by the "Your Voice on the Board" political action committee (PAC): Schneider, Barbehenn, Mull, DePaolo, and Huyssen. Their signs are all over our community.
But what the signs don't say is that Schneider and her husband own Metro Beauty Academy. And the U.S. Department of Justice recently determined that Metro Beauty Academy had for years been defrauding the federal student loan program, in part by forging local high school diplomas. Schneider's business was forced to settle these claims by paying $425,000 in restitution in 2020. According to U.S. Attorney's Office, Metro Beauty Academy:
"knowingly submitted or caused to be submitted claims for federal student financial aid that were false," and in some cases the business "created fake diplomas for students, or encouraged students to obtain false credentials"
Their signs also don't say that Berbehenn has been active in promoting unfounded and extremist political views online. He has amplified the ideas of people like Dinesh D'Souza, a prominent election denier who has publicly mocked school shooting victims and equated homosexuality with the Nazis, and James O'Keefe, best known for repeatedly doctoring evidence and falsifying data to promote conspiracy theories. Both have criminal convictions.
The other candidates in this bloc have stood by Schneider and Barbehenn despite these revelations. Barbehenn has said that questions about student aid fraud and forged diplomas amount to "coming after our businesses" in a "politics of personal destruction." DePaolo has invited people to "ask the tough questions," but then claimed questions about these kinds of issues "pollute our ability to have constructive dialogue." To the best of my knowledge, Mull and Huyssen have said nothing at all about these revelations.
This candidate bloc has also clearly and unequivocally denied any association with REEPE, an East Penn group that spreads conspiracy theories about the schools and misrepresents student test score data, and Moms for Liberty, a national organization focused primarily on banning books and enacting anti-LGBT policies. "For the record, we are NOT part of either group. We have NOT sought an endorsement or funding from either group. Their agenda is NOT our agenda," they've collectively written online.
I certainly want to take them at their word. But here's the problem: The head of REEPE, Frank Dumbleton, has publicly said not only that these are REEPE candidates, but also that they all agreed to deliberately pretend otherwise. Here's what Mr. Dumbleton told the Lehigh County chapter of Moms for Liberty as their featured speaker on February 23 at CoreLife in Hamilton Crossings:
"Our candidates decided that it was wise as a strategy to run at arms length from us...Our candidates are not part of REEPE, but I'm going to tell you how we worked around that...They believe what we believe. They're against all this woke nonsense. But, uh, but the strategy is that they are not part of REEPE."
Alas, there is more. This bloc of five have consistently spoken as a single voice under the banner of the "Your Voice on the Board" PAC. And who do you suppose created that PAC? The same Frank Dumbleton of REEPE. You can see the legal papers for yourself.
So let's get real here for a minute. Yes, this is all negative stuff. I wish we didn't have to talk about it. I wish none of it were true, so we could focus squarely on the very real issues in our schools. But forging high school diplomas to defraud taxpayers on student loans is, in my view, disqualifying for a school board candidate. Do you disagree? And if some of these facts are wrong, they've been known for months now and neither Schneider nor the rest of her bloc has corrected them other than to say we shouldn't be discussing them at all. Yesterday I spoke about judgment being the core issue in this campaign. What does repeatedly sharing and re-sharing the most extreme and discredited voices online nationally say about the judgement a candidate will exercise as a school board member locally? What does hiding one's source of funding and political support, for that matter?
All of these candidates are engaged in the community, their bloc has said many of the right things about some of the issues our schools face, and they have emphasized the need for things like leadership, transparency, and more. Bravo! But the proof is in the pudding.
Take care,
Ziad
Yesterday I covered the positive case for why I'll be voting for Levinson, Jankowski, Klotz, Kelly, and Ford.
Here's some posts on past challenges our school district have faced from extremists:
Thank you for your diligence!