Saucon Valley school board failing low-income families

Saucon Valley School District is still, mostly, a good place to raise children.

But we’ve seen better times.

You may be a comfortable resident of the district. My own life, I have to admit, is pretty good these days, and far better than my parents’ lives were, economically speaking.

Public education lifted me up.

But our school district’s most critical site for protecting all our futures—the elementary school—continues to post equity ratings and academic performances that should turn our stomachs.

We’re letting down low-income families, and our school board isn’t living up to the standards we expect in Saucon.

They’ve proven themselves to be woefully unequipped to oversee educational policy, not to mention day-to-day district operations.

And just what the heck is happening, or not happening, at Saucon Valley Elementary? Take a look:

Saucon Valley Elementary Ratings at GreatSchools.org

Not very impressive, to say the least. At most, the scores are meh.

Compare these ratings to the much more diverse Williams Elementary in Easton (Wilson Area School District), for example. We’re not even close!

Williams Township Elementary ratings at GreatSchools.org

When you look at GreatSchools.org equity ratings for the elementary school, the news gets much worse—scary worse. Even if your own child is not directly affected by these numbers, make no mistake: This doesn’t happen in great school districts. But we can still turn it around.

We can do better. We must do better in Saucon Valley.

We need better school board, folks.

Political ideology, deep ignorance about teachers’ experiences, micromanaging of administrators, an unwillingness to listen to all stakeholders, and sheer arrogance— all these things in our board are taking our district to the edge of a cliff. We need a new board, and we need to step back from the cliff.