1 incumbent, 4 newcomers vie for spots on Deer Lakes School Board

Five candidates are vying for four slots for the Deer Lakes School Board in Tuesday’s primary election, with issues such as mental health and re-focusing on academics after the pandemic taking center stage.

Candidates include one incumbent, Kristi Minnick, along with four new candidates: Brian Brown, Jeremy Love, Jonathan Majernik, and Traci Stotler.

All five candidates are cross-filed, meaning each is seeking a nomination on the Democratic and Republican party slates in November’s general election.

Kristi Minnick

Minnick, 50, has served on the board for the last four years. With a middle-school-aged son in the district, Minnick said she’s eager to see the school board focus on education again after a year of worrying about how to handle the covid-19 crisis.

“It’s really about getting focus back on the students, their education, their mental health and well-being,” she said.

Taxes are another big issue for the district, said Minnick, who holds a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and works as a senior director in IT for WESCO Distribution.

Deer Lakes is a rural community, lacking commercial revenue, she said. With new teachers’ contract negotiations set for the end of this academic year and a potential teacher shortage looming, she said it’s important for the school board to be “creative and careful” with expenses.

But after the covid-19 pandemic, she said, it’s impossible to know exactly what Deer Lakes students will need in the fall.

With no standardized testing last year, and the results of this year’s testing not yet available, she said, it’s impossible to know how much school closures, remote learning and other covid-19 complications have impacted learning.

But making up for those challenges will be a primary focus in the next academic year.

“I rely heavily on our teachers and the feedback we get from them and administration,” Minnick said. “My goal is to take the information they present to us and analyze it and then support them in their initiatives. We don’t really know what we’re going to see in the fall.”

Jeremy Love

But Love, 45, said he can already anticipate some of the problems that might arise next school year. With three children in Deer Lakes schools, Love said he is witnessing firsthand the problems the pandemic has brought for education.

“I think our children are going to be — speaking from personal experience with my own kids — they’re going to be behind,” he said. “We’re going to be playing catch-up, because these kids have missed so much school, so much person-to-person learning. It makes them not want to be there because they’re behind.”

Focusing on helping kids catch up academically would be a top priority, Love said.

A 1994 Deer Lakes graduate, Love said he has close ties to the district and wants to see students succeed. He is the vice president of the district’s varsity and junior varsity cheerleading boosters, and he helped found the drama boosters.

Love said he’d like to address issues like bullying and mental health resources.

“A lot of bullying comes from mental health issues that are not addressed,” he said. Providing more mental health services could ease those issues. Love advocated for a school psychiatrist and more counselors.

Brian Brown

Brown, 39, also said he’d be adept at tackling issues that have arisen from the pandemic and a year full of academic and personal challenges for students.

Brown holds a bachelor’s degree in education from Robert Morris University, along with a master’s degree from Duquesne in Education in School Administration and Supervision. He has earned a letter of eligibility from Point Park University that would permit him to serve as a superintendent.

Currently, he’s a school principal with the Allegheny Intermediate Unit. He began his career as a teacher at Penn Hills.

“I’m a fifteen-year educator and school board administrator,” he said. “I felt my experience would be necessary.”

Like Love, Brown said he anticipates students will need extra help after more than a year of learning was disrupted by covid-19. With a position on the school board, Brown said, he would advocate for additional resources, like tutoring.

“We’re going to have to take a hard look at data from standardized tests this year,” he said. “Then, we can look at a game plan moving forward to help kids succeed.”

Whatever that plan may entail, Brown said the students should be at the center of it.

“Whenever I have to make a tough decision, I always think about what’s best for kids — that’s my mantra,” he said.

Brown lost a previous run at school director.

Jonathan Majernik

Majernik, 41, said he was running for political office for the first time because he wanted to set an example for his three kids, who attend district schools.

“As a parent, you try to set a good example for your kids,” he said. “I try to instill in my children that if you want your voice to be heard, you have to be part of the solution — and do that in a positive way.”

More transparency from the school board would be a top priority for Majernik, who has a bachelor’s degree in business marketing from Robert Morris University. He serves as the vice president of national markets for Highmark.

During the pandemic, surveys sent out to parents provided data for the school board to use when making decisions — but those surveys were sometimes confusing or inaccurate, he said.

“I would like to be able to provide a high level of transparency and thoughtfulness in how we’re gathering that data in the community,” he said.

Proper data, he said, should drive decision-making for the school board.

“It starts with having good data to make educated, informed decisions,” he said. “That’s something I can bring to the table in offering an objective lens to what are often difficult decisions.”

Traci Stotler

Stotler did not respond to repeated inquiries from the Tribune-Review.