At the East Penn School Board Meeting June 13, board members voted unanimously to pass a motion that would absolve them of further obligations to the Jaindl Land Company.

The agreement involves giving Jaindl approximately 14 acres of land along Route 100, as well as $1.7 million for exclusive use of Sauerkraut road’s redevelopment and extension. An additional eight acres of land will also be given to Jaindl to help handle runoff from this road extension.

In exchange, the school district will be free of its obligations to Jaindl. Due to sales of smaller properties owned by the district, the money to be paid to Jaindl will not affect the taxpayers or the school district’s budget.

The roots of the deal trace back to the early 2000s, when a series of population explosions made Emmaus High School thoroughly overcrowded. The district, hoping to build a new high school to combat the overpopulation, entered a deal with Jaindl Land Company in 2006 to purchase the 100 acre Romig farm with the hopes of building a new school on the property. With the 2007 recession, these developmental plans were indefinitely stalled. However, the agreement with Jaindl was still in place. As a result, the district owed Jaindl the aforementioned land parcel and developmental money as part of the deal.

After a decade of renegotiating the contract, the school board has been able to lump all of the conditions into one final deal as opposed to several smaller ones.

Dr. Ziad Munson, board member and associate professor of sociology at Lehigh University, remarked the deal was “the best of the bad options.” Munson said trying to renegotiate further would cost the district more due to a “variety of legal obligations” and reverting to the original 2007 agreement would allow Jaindl to have continued influence over the rest of the property.

In agreeing to this deal, Jaindl will not be allowed to re-purchase Romig farm (or portions of it) should the district decide to sell it in the future. The board voted unanimously to approve the agreement as it was presented and the motion carried.

The motion will hopefully lay to rest lingering resentments against the school district by parents of students and residents, several of whom expressed their dissatisfaction and regret over the board’s actions in the beginning of the meeting.

The board also looked into adopting new and revised board policies. Munson attempted to add an amendment to one such of these policies, which allowed the school district to discipline students for activities that occurred outside of the classroom and/or online. Munson was concerned with the amount of jurisdiction the school district would be attaining in this matter, believing the district should not involve itself with the students’ off campus self-expression. However, a motion to approve the board policies with his amendment was met with nays from the rest of the board. The board policies passed in their original form.

The board also approved a motion to approve a request to the Pennsylvania Department of Education for an Act 80 exception regarding the afternoon kindergarten programs within the district. Due to a large amount of weather-related cancellations, the afternoon kindergarten classes were one day short of the 180 day minimum. Under the Act 80 exception, the minimum 180 days rule is replaced with a minimum 450 hours rule, which the kindergarten classes met. The motion was unanimously approved.

The school district also entered an agreement with the Lehigh Valley Health Network to provide sports medicine services to its athletes. The deal, which would cost $40,000, was unanimously approved among several student and athletic insurance policies during the night.

Several more policies were unanimously approved, including a number of personnel changes regarding district faculty and staff, reports from staff regarding students at the Lehigh Career & Technical Institute, as well as a reading of student announcements from Emmaus High School Student Brooke Iobst.

A moment of silence was held in the beginning of the meeting to honor Mehdi Jaffer, an Emmaus High School senior who died suddenly May 27.