Norwin school board factions square off in primary election

With four incumbents not seeking reelection, the control of the divided Norwin School Board will be up for grabs this year, beginning with the May 16 primary.

Nine of the 10 candidates are seeking the nominations on both the Democratic and Republican slates in the primary, with one candidate just the Democratic ballot. The district serves residents in North Huntingdon, Irwin and North Irwin in Westmoreland County and 18 residences in White Oak and South Versailles in Allegheny County.

The composition of the board will change in December because directors Darlene Ciocca, William Essay, Joanna Jordan and Patrick Lynn have opted not to run for reelection.

Director Bob Wayman is running on the Norwin4Change slate with Lynda Funk, Tammy Moreno, Tom Ryan, Dale Weisensee, all of whom have cross-filed. Wayman is the only one of the slate who has previously held a public office.

They are opposed by the We aRe Norwin slate of Bill Bojalad, Tim Kotch Sr., Heath Shrum, Matt Thomas and Nina Totin. All of those candidates will be seeking the nominations of both parties, with the exception of Totin, whose nominating petition for the Republican ballot was successfully challenged by Alex Detschelt, whose term on the board does not expire until 2025.

The candidates on both slates complained that there is too much politics being played on the school board, which has been steeped in controversy since December 2021, when three new directors took office — Detschelt, Shawna Ilagan and Christine Baverso.

Those three, along with Wayman, have been able to get the CNN 10 news and entertainment broadcast banned from middle school classrooms and unsuccessfully sought the banning of the book “Al Capone Does My Shirts.” The board also debated whether critical race theory is being taught in the schools. It adopted a policy addressing teaching controversial issues such as race.

The new school board also will likely will have the authority to decide whether to renew Superintendent Jeff Taylor’s contract, which is to expire in June 2024. The state public school code requires a school board to decide within 90 days of the expiration of the superintendent’s contract whether it wants to retain them.

Wayman has been joined by Detschelt and Ilagan as frequent critics of the administration in general and Taylor. Wayman, Detschelt, Ilagan and Baverso sued fellow directors Raymond Kocak, Ciocca and Essay in Westmoreland County Court in February for not including the four directors’ low marks of the superintendent’ s performance in a published evaluation of him.

Funk, 60, of North Huntingdon, a retired retail manager, said there have been poor decisions that have wasted taxpayer money and “horrible time management” because of what she claims is the administration’s failure to be transparent with the school board.

Funk said she hopes to bring teamwork to the board and “keep politics out of it.”

Moreno, 46, of Irwin, is running because she is “concerned about critical race theory and the indoctrination and sexualization of our children.”

Moreno, a real estate agent and notary public, said she disagrees with the administration that critical race theory is not a part of the instruction in Norwin.

Moreno wanted the school board in February to remove all copies of the book, “Al Capone Does My Shirts.” Detschelt, however, failed to get the board to do so. She also spoke last year against the broadcasting of CNN 10 in middle school classrooms.

Ryan, 47, of North Huntingdon, a jewelry store owner, said he wants to focus on transparency and accountability and does not believe there is sufficient transparency in the budget process.

Ryan said he is not a political person and there should not be any politics “on a school board that favors special interests within the district.”

Wayman, of Irwin, retired as a Norwin teacher in 2019 and was elected to the board that year. He said he is running for reelection because of what he described as “the political monopoly” and “progressive ideology permeating education in the district.”

Among the many issues the district faces, Wayman said, the condition of the buildings and “the transformation of education from skilled-based learning to social and political indoctrination.”

Weisensee, of North Huntingdon, a project manager, said he is interested in focusing on making sure the district’s capital projects are done properly.

He could not be reached for comment.

Bojalad, 54, a senior director of global logistics for scrap metal recycler TMS International, said his experience in the business world, as well as his community service, will be a benefit to the district.

Bojalad said he is on the slate to promote the district and “not a political party.”

“The first priority is to end the chaos,” Bojalad said.

Kotch, 66, of North Huntingdon, who worked for Norwin for 25 years as a math teacher, assistant principal, principal and assistant superintendent, said he wants to see an end to the political agendas that are being pursued on the board at the expense of “focusing on the children.”

Kotch said he wanted to run for the school board because he has been watching an excellent education system “being slowly eroded.”

Shrum, 54, of North Huntingdon, a Gateway School District middle school teacher, said he is running “basically to keep the politics out of the school board and do what’s right for the Norwin community.”

To those who have objected to books in the curriculum, Shrum noted that parents have the right for their children to opt out of participating in those lessons.

Thomas, student services director for the Westmoreland Intermediate Unit, has been a teacher, technology coordinator, high school principal and curriculum development specialist in a career where he worked for three school districts and the intermediate unit.

A former president of the Westmont Hilltop School District near Johnstown, Thomas said he wants to forge decisions based on facts and build consensus among people and groups with different opinions.

Totin, 31, of North Huntingdon, a stay-at-home mom, said she wants to study the possibility of providing as many opportunities for students to take subjects, such as foreign languages, and participate in activities, as when she graduated.

“I would like to put the focus on the children, not the politics,” Totin said.