David Sodl is making the jump from Monroe to Carbon County after Palmerton Area School District officially hired him Tuesday night as assistant principal at both the junior and senior high schools.

Hired at an annual salary of $87,000, he is coming from Pleasant Valley School District, where he was assistant principal at the high school since 2017.

“Palmerton to me is a great district, and I welcome the opportunity to work in both junior and senior high schools,” Sodl said after the meeting.

Palmerton is bringing the assistant secondary principal position back for the first time in around seven years. Resident Lisa Snell Kern first advocated for the position at a board meeting last October.

“On an ongoing basis, I feel like we could use an assistant principal to help deal with disciplinary actions so Mrs. (Paula) Husar’s time can be focused on curriculum and how to move the high school forward. She does a great job, but I just feel if we had an assistant principal at the junior high and high school, it would work out so much better.”

Sodl was an educator for nine years before taking the administrative post at Pleasant Valley.

For the first two years of his career he was a life science teacher at Nitschmann Middle School in the Bethlehem Area School District. From 2010-17, he was a high school biology and chemistry teacher at Freedom High School in Bethlehem. He earned his master’s degree in educational leadership in 2012 and his administrative certification in 2014, both from Lehigh University.

“I think this is a good move for my family,” he said of the move to Palmerton’s administration. “I live closer to this district, and I’m just looking forward to getting that experience in a smaller district where I get to really impact students at the junior and senior high levels. That was a very attractive quality about this position for me.”

Sodl currently resides in Slatington with wife Julie, daughter Josephine, and their two dogs.