A vote to fill a newly opened school board seat collapsed Wednesday night when three Lehighton Area School District directors walked out of a meeting, leaving the board without a quorum and halting the appointment process amid escalating tension.

The special meeting was advertised “to accept the resignation or resignations of board members and, if necessary, appoint new members to the board.”

The vacancy resulted from director April Walker’s decision to step down effective Tuesday.

Her resignation was accepted Wednesday by a 5-2 vote with Kerry Sittler and Heather Neff opposed.

Walker’s statement

At the start of the meeting, Superintendent Jason Moser read Walker’s written statement, where she told the community she was leaving “with a heavy heart” after “much prayer, deep reflection and many conversations with those closest to me.”

“Serving on this board has been one of the great honors of my life,” Walker wrote. She said her departure was due to “personal responsibilities, particularly those related to my health,” but added, “My belief in this district and its mission has never been stronger.”

Walker also addressed why she did not speak frequently during public meetings.

“I feared my words would be twisted, taken out of context, misquoted or selectively published,” she wrote.

Bowes challenges board

The board received letters of interest from eight residents: Brooke Kennedy, Nicole Collier, Kirk Henritzy, Lou Accardi, Walter Zlomsowitch, Nathan Foeller, Denise Hartley and Kasara Weinrich.

Director Barbara Bowes said previous boards interviewed candidates publicly and allowed them to speak.

“That would have been the proper way to do it, in my opinion,” she said, adding she was not involved in deciding the process for the recent appointments.

Bowes also said only three board members thanked applicants for submitting letters. “To the other members on the board — shame on you,” she said.

No quorum

Beers made a motion to appoint Hartley to fill Walker’s unexpired term, which runs until December 2027.

Duane Dellecker was absent from Wednesday’s meeting, leaving the board with seven members after Walker’s resignation.

Before the board could vote, Bowes, Sittler and Neff walked out, leaving the meeting without a quorum.

What followed was a heated back-and-forth between Beers and Collier over a prior board denial for the Middle School PTO to park cars at the middle school and run a shuttle to the Witches’ Midnight Market in Lehighton in October as a fundraiser.

Beers said she cast a no vote on the fundraiser because “people who had attended … told me that witchcraft was being performed at the witches market.”

Collier disputed that explanation and alleged that, after the board voted the fundraiser down, Beers came to the parking lot and “offered a cure,” which Collier said was “to bring in priests to the school to have them prevent hexes on the school.”

Turmoil from last meeting

The board had already been facing backlash after last Thursday’s 5-3 vote to appoint Dave Bradley to fill another sudden vacancy created by the resignation of Sean Gleaves.

That meeting included more than an hour of arguments and recesses.

Opponents warned Bradley’s return would cause “unproductive meetings, fighting about the past, lawsuits, wasted money (and) endless right-to-knows.”

Moser told the board last week that his job was “to work with whichever nine are sitting at this table” and said the only priorities were “what is absolutely the best thing for students” and “at a cost the community can afford.”

He cautioned that the polarization displayed “is not good for kids, and it’s not the best thing for taxpayers.”

Resident challenges board on procedure

During public comment, Foeller, a former board member, criticized how recent appointments have been handled.

“In past vacancies, we evaluated candidates, we heard what they had to bring, and we decided what they could offer,” Foeller said.

He told the board he felt “the entire process has been sidestepped for a preselected candidate.”

With no quorum present to complete the vote Wednesday, Walker’s former seat remains vacant.