Saucon Valley School Board members shortened Superintendent Jaime Vlasaty’s proposed contract extension from five years to four and then passed the modified version amid staunch opposition from community members Tuesday night.
The new contract will run from July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2030, and will raise Vlasaty’s salary to $205,000. The board also approved a 3% annual salary increase that brings her current pay to $182,687.
While Board President Cedric Dettmar and others strongly endorsed Vlasaty’s leadership, concerns about teacher turnover and burnout dominated discussion both in public comment and in audience conversations held while board members adjourned to a mid-meeting executive session.
“I see teachers every day that are upset with their jobs,” junior Donald Flores said during public comment.
Fellow junior Gavin Murphy told The Morning Call that the district has great teachers who are overwhelmed, often due to new class assignments.
“They need consistency,” Murphy said. “They need to stop getting moved around.”
Meghan Lomangino, who won a board seat in last week’s general election and will take office next month, told The Morning Call that the last time a board meeting saw such high turnout was in the spring, after nearly one-third of the teaching staff received new assignments.
Lomangino said she is not aware of exit interviews or other data that would identify why teachers are leaving. She’s heard complaints about micromanagement, and she hopes that serving on the board will allow her to better understand how district leadership is affecting teachers and administrators.
Lomangino was one of two newly elected board members who were not able to vote on the superintendent’s contract extension due to its scheduling three weeks before the December reorganization meeting.
In public comment, Lomangino called on current board members to include all stakeholder perspectives when considering the contract extension.
“I’m just asking that you include any due diligence that you have in these conversations,” Lomangino said.
Fellow newly elected board member J. Christian Tatu said he felt discouraged listening to current board members say that newly elected members were not qualified to vote on the contract extension.
“Unfortunately, I’m going home tonight a lot less hopeful,” Tatu said.
Board member Bill Broun unsuccessfully attempted to table the contract discussion due to his concerns about its rushed scheduling. The day after Election Day, board members received notice that the superintendent’s contract extension would be added to Tuesday’s agenda, a move Broun called a “disgusting post-election stunt” in a Nov. 6 blog post.
“It’s simply disgusting and cynical and juvenile to shut the new board members out of this important decision, particularly when two of the three co-sponsors of the agenda item — based on the information I have — won’t be on the board come December!” Broun wrote.
Dettmar confirmed during Tuesday’s meeting that board members John Conte, Tracy Magnotta and Laurel Erickson-Parsons had requested the agenda item be added. Conte and Magnotta are finishing their terms this month.
Debate about job performance
The district’s website reports that Vlasaty received her latest performance evaluation two weeks ago, stating: “Consistent with the Public School Code, the Saucon Valley School District Board of School Directors met with Superintendent Jaime Vlasaty on October 28, 2025, to review her agreed-to objective performance standards. The District is pleased to report that the superintendent successfully met her goals for the 2024–2025 school year.”
Online commentators have not been as pleased with Vlasaty’s performance. A change.org petition filed by “Parents of Saucon Valley” in March 2024 called for her termination, citing low morale and high teacher turnover. The petition drew more than 780 signatures.
Ed Kolosky, a former district educator and coach, said during public comment that fear of retaliation had affected administrators and job shifts had demoralized staff.
“You have destroyed the morale of our staff,” Kolosky said, “and to me that’s the worst thing you could ever do.”
Vlasaty’s defenders Tuesday night included former board member Susan Baxter, who praised the superintendent’s intelligence and dedication.
“She is matter-of-fact and a straight shooter,” Baxter said. “You can depend on her.”
School Board President Shamim Pakzad said he is satisfied with how the district has been run, noting that its strong financial position stands in contrast to districts that have struggled to weather the state budget impasse.
“The superintendent, as the CEO of their district, gets a lot of credit for that,” Pakzad said.
Board members Vivian Demko and Jay Santos joined Broun in voting against the contract extension.
“I strongly believe there’s not one person in this room that’s happy about this contract,” Demko said.
The new contract includes a negotiation window that starts July 1, 2029, and runs through Aug. 31, 2029. In that period, the board and the superintendent can either negotiate a new contract or agree to a separation.
That provision was added when board members changed the contract proposal from a five-year extension to a four-year extension. Lomangino told The Morning Call that the new language should be beneficial in bringing more transparency to negotiations.
Vlasaty’s previous experience
Vlasaty came to the Saucon Valley School District in 2018 as the Director of Special Education. She resigned that position with the Easton Area School District in September 2017 when that district appointed new leaders for the department.
A separation agreement obtained by lehighvalleylive.com showed Vlasaty received more than $36,000 in accrued sick, vacation and personal days and was entitled to keep drawing her Easton Area School District salary until her resignation became effective on Dec. 31, 2017.
The agreement prohibited Vlasaty and the district from making “critical or denigrating statements about the other,” lehighvalleylive.com reported.
Vlasaty became acting superintendent in October 2021. Her salary was adjusted to $132,000, and the board approved additional monthly compensation for assuming the duties of acting superintendent.
Following a search process, Vlasaty earned a promotion to superintendent in February 2022, with a four-year contract expiring June 30, 2026.
The most well-known controversy of Vlasaty’s tenure came in 2023, when she rescinded permission for the After School Satan Club to meet in district space, a move that sparked a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union and The Satanic Temple Inc., resulting in a $200,000 settlement between the school district and the club.
Flyers promoting the club explained The Satanic Temple as a “non-theistic religion that views Satan as a literary figure who represents a metaphorical construct of rejecting tyranny and championing the human mind and spirit.”
“After School Satan Club does not attempt to convert children to any religious ideology,” the flyers read. “Instead, The Satanic Temple supports children to think for themselves.”
Advertised club activities included science projects, community service and crafts.
Vlasaty initially notified parents that the district had previously allowed religious groups to rent space and could not legally discriminate among groups wishing to use district facilities. She then rescinded that permission, claiming the club violated school board policy by not clearly communicating it was not district-sponsored.
Debate regarding the club became heated, and a phoned threat from a North Carolina man caused the district’s schools to close for a day.
Junior Bode Spencer called the controversy the result of “inconsistent decision-making and poor communication.” His brief reference during public comment was the only time the issue came up on Tuesday, with most audience concerns centering on the issue Spencer first identified: high teacher turnover.
“If her contract gets passed, we’re going to lose a lot more teachers,” district parent Alicia Kichline told The Morning Call.
Broun published an analysis of teacher retention in March 2024 that found “the academic years 2021-22 and 2022-23 saw double the number of employee resignations (34 and 38, respectively) compared to the recent historic norm (typically, about 10 to 18 a year).”
That data came from a 10-year survey of school board minutes, Broun reported, adding that the “movement of teachers from building to building is a notable sore point.”