RELATED: School board race outcomes across the Lehigh Valley
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — The Allentown School Board will have new faces join the already young board come December.
Unofficial results from Tuesday’s election show four first-time school directors will join the board and serve for the next four years — Evette D’Amore, Cereta Johnson, Dianne Michels and Denzel Morris.
That’s after four current school directors chose not to seek re-election, including LaTarsha Brown, Lisa Conover, Phoebe Harris and Jennifer Hartnett.
Conover and Harris will leave the board having served two terms. Hartnett and Brown will leave the board after having served one term.
Brown, an ex-city employee, hasn’t attended a school board meeting in months after being at the center of a public controversy.
Brown recently admitted to putting a noose on her own desk at City Hall in January, sparking calls for a federal hate-crime investigation. As a result, she was charged with two misdemeanors.
With Brown, Conover, Harris and Hartnett gone from the board in December, school Director Audrey Mathison will be the most senior leader, having served on the board for a decade.
Otherwise, the remaining eight school directors, as of December, will all have served on the board for less than three years, including incumbent Nick Nicholoff, who won a two-year seat in Tuesday’s election.
Incumbent wins two-year seat
Nicholoff will finish out the term he took over from former school director Daysell Ramirez in August 2024. Ramirez only served six months of her four-year term before resigning, citing tensions with other school directors.
With Tuesday’s victory, Nicholoff will serve for another two years.
Nicholoff beat former school director Bob Smith, who last served on the board in 2019.
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Bob Smith and Nick Nicholoff
Robert “Bob” Smith, left, lost in the race for a two-year seat on the Allentown School Board to Robert “Nick” Nicholoff, right.
Smith was vying for both the two-year seat and a four-year seat on the Allentown School Board. Despite an endorsement from the Allentown teachers’ union, he was unsuccessful in both races.
Smith regularly attends school board meetings to speak during the public comment section.
He has been vocal about everything from school board meetings starting late to a perceived focus on hiring administrators instead of building staff. Smith has also criticized the salary of Superintendent Carol Birks, who was hired in 2023 at a salary of $250,000.
Smith and other candidates solely on the Republican ticket, including Tom Houck and David Zimmerman, were beaten by a margin of about 3,400 votes on the low end and about 6,400 on the high end.
Republican candidates often struggle in the strongly Democratic city, but Michels, a registered Republican, was able to find success in cross-filing, appearing on both the parties’ tickets.
Dianne Michels
Michels, a counselor and former teacher, has spoken about supporting teachers and students throughout her campaign.
On Wednesday, Michels again highlighted her dedication to retaining “front line” workers in the district’s schools, from teachers to paraprofessionals and others that work daily with students.
“I want to do all that we can to make sure that we’re giving our children, especially those with special needs, the best education we can,” Michels told LehighValleyNews.com.
Michels also said she will learn more about what’s expected of her in the new role when she is sworn in next month.
Evette D’Amore
D’Amore, a district parent and an office manager for an electrician, told LehighValleyNews.com on Wednesday she’s humbled by her victory and ready to put in the hard work of governing.
“The state budget has yet to be passed, so we remain in a precarious situation,” D’Amore said in a statement.
Pennsylvania’s budget is late by four months, making the state the only one in the country without a budget for the current fiscal year.
Last month, Allentown School District announced it will withhold 40% of monthly charter school tuition payments during the budget impasse.
Six other local districts have done the same, including Bethlehem Area, Easton Area, Northern Lehigh, Northwestern Lehigh, Parkland and Salisbury Township.
“We need to work together toward solutions and avoid being distracted by things that don’t matter to the welfare of our kids.”
Evette D’Amore, recently elected Allentown School Director
During these tough financial times, D’Amore said the district must be “smart, creative, and proactive.”
“We need to work together toward solutions and avoid being distracted by things that don’t matter to the welfare of our kids,” she said.
Throughout her campaign, D’Amore also has said she will focus on increasing staff morale and holding the district administration accountable.
D’Amore, who was endorsed by the teachers’ union, said the district needs to hire more building staff and stop bloat at the administrative level.
According to the district’s job listings, there are 57 teacher vacancies as of Wednesday — that’s seven more than listed in mid-October.
There are also 96 paraprofessional vacancies — five more than in mid-October.
“We’ve lost so many teachers, and friends of mine that are teachers are saying they want to leave as well because they don’t have the support they need from the administration, from their principals,” D’Amore said in September.
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PBS39 Livestream
Candidates, from L to R, Dianne Michels, Denzel Morris, Nick Nicholoff and Robert Smith, Jr.
Denzel Morris
Morris, who works for Meta on generative AI, told LehighValleyNews.com in a Wednesday message that he had no comment on his vision for the district moving forward.
But in a statement provided, he said: “Thank you to every voter in Allentown who trusts me to lead our school district.”
Throughout his campaign, Morris has spoken about wanting to model the school district after his alma mater, Swain School, now a branch of Moravian Academy, another local private school.
At a recent forum, Morris said combating absenteeism would be a main priority of his.
He also said he would be willing to keep school property taxes flat even if it meant the district would have to manage negative outcomes as a result.
“At the end of the day, I don’t think we should force a burden upon people that they don’t want,” he said.
At last month’s school board meeting, school directors approved a resolution for the 2026-27 budget, agreeing not to raise taxes more than 5.4%.
ASD has not raised taxes in the past three years.
Nick Nicholoff
Nicholoff, a human resources manager by day and chair of the school board’s policy committee, directed LehighValleyNews.com on Wednesday to a post on his Facebook page about the election.
In the post, he wrote, “I have, and will continue to, work as hard as possible toward the goal of setting our next generation up for success, in whatever form that takes for them.”
Nicholoff campaigned on continuing his efforts to update the district’s policies.
He also called for the district to teach elementary school students about logic, problem solving and the rules of inference — which he said are shown to help students develop skills to be successful later in life.
On concerns about staffing raised throughout the campaign, Nicholoff said in September that the district doesn’t struggle to hire staff. The “issue” is retention.
It’s important there are clear avenues for staff to file complaints so their concerns are addressed and they want to stay in the district, Nicholoff said.
Cereta Johnson
Johnson, an entrepreneur and owner of Children of Joy Christian Academy, didn’t immediately respond to a Wednesday request for comment.
Throughout her campaign, she spoke about tuning into the needs of students and teachers.
At a spring public forum, she said the school board needs to understand what supports and resources are truly needed in classrooms, rather than acting as “a dictatorship,” issuing mandates from the top down.
Johnson, a former district parent and ASD graduate, also previously worked as a paraprofessional at Dieruff.