In response to backlash, a member of a Pennsylvania school board who refused to vote for “the lone cis white guy” to be the board president has resigned.
On December 6, Jennifer Solot informed the Upper Moreland School District meeting in Philadelphia’s northern suburbs that she could not endorse Greg D’Elia for president.
Solot, the acting school board treasurer who presided over the meeting until a new president was chosen, said that choosing April Stainback over D’Elia would “send the incorrect message.”
She said, “I think Mr. D’Elia would be a great president.”
However, I believe that voting the lone cis white guy on this board as the district’s president sends the incorrect message to our community and runs counter to what we as a board have been attempting to achieve.
Stainback, the newly elected president, and the superintendent, Dr. Susan Elliott, announced Solot’s resignation on Monday.
January will mark Solot’s resignation.
According to Stainbeck and Elliott, “She desires to apologize for her poorly chosen statements and does not want to be a distraction from the amazing things occurring in our classrooms on a daily basis.”
“Ms. Solot’s remarks during the board reorganization meeting were her own, and neither they nor the district as a whole were meant to reflect the views of the entire UMSD Board of Directors,” the statement reads.
Greg D’Elia, the board director who was the target of her remarks, has said that he “supports diversity, but these statements did not enhance diversity and reflected badly on our community.”
They claimed Solot’s remarks were discriminatory and that their school system could not permit them.
Without discrimination based on ancestry, national origin, race, color, age, creed, religion, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, handicap, or gender identity, they said that they valued the complete variety of the community they served.
Similarly, “We recruit the best qualified individual for the role in all staffing positions in the district and do not discriminate.”
In her statements on December 6, Solot said that Stainback was the ideal choice.
Mrs. Stainback has performed well as president over the last several months, and because of this, she has earned my support today.
Stainback beat D’Elia, a father-of-three who had previously held the position of school director in the region and had previously had support from local Democrats, 8-1.
Anger erupted in response to Solot’s remarks, in which she accused the mother and school board member of “racist” and inquired as to if there was “a petition for Jennifer Solot to leave.”
Solot’s comments, according to self-described local political pundit Joe Rittenhouse, “reflects badly on the district and the ideals of public education,” he said on Facebook.
She was accused of launching a “sexist, racist diatribe on video criticizing individuals on their fitness to be elected school board president based on their skin color, sexual orientation, and gender,” according to him.
Jennifer Solot should be ashamed. He wrote, “Resign.”
Following Solot’s remarks, Sarah Byrnes, a new board member, hesitated before stating, “This is really hard to do as the new person on the board,” and then she cast her vote in favor of Ms. Stainback.
Rose Huber was on the fence about Stainback, a mother of five who has also worked as a school director in the neighborhood, before casting her vote.
D’Elia, a prominent local, has been a resident of the Upper Moreland region for almost 15 years. He is the father of three kids, two of whom are enrolled in Upper Moreland schools.
He said that one of his children’s struggles in school “and was having a really unpleasant experience” increased his interest in the school board.
He decided to run for office to “increase access to special services for pupils” as a result of his experience obtaining special education resources for his child.
His platform for running for school director in 2019 focused on “the value of education” and the idea that it is “the whole community’s obligation to teach the future generation.”
D’Elia promised to provide his professional perspective to “collect data to make judgments and best efficiently employ resources” as a mechanical engineer.
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