Lower Merion’s school board race is heated amid complaints about antisemitism, Trump caricatures, and unfair endorsements

Heavily Democratic Lower Merion has not experienced the partisan battles that have increasingly dominated some local school board elections. But this year’s races have gotten heated in ways that also mirror national divides.

Nine candidates are on Tuesday’s Democratic primary ballot, competing to appear on the November general election ballot for just four open school board seats. And tensions have emerged between candidates endorsed by the local Democratic committee — including the current school board president and another incumbent — and critics, including rivals who say the current board has failed to adequately combat antisemitism.

A candidate forum was canceled earlier this month out of concern for “disruptive behavior,” though organizers did not specify the threats.

Three of the candidates on the Democratic ballot are endorsed by the GOP; a mailer from the Democratic Party with cartoon depictions of President Donald Trump’s head next to their names angered some candidates and community members, who called it unnecessarily divisive.

» READ MORE: Here’s who’s running in this year’s Lower Merion School District board primary

A pro-Israel, anti-Islam social media account that posts incidents it finds antisemitic also objected to the mailer’s use of red stop signs next to two unendorsed Democrats, calling it a “shocking hate scandal” against Jewish candidates.

One of those unendorsed Democrats is challenging the official party slate with a flurry of mailers and lawn signs, saying the current board has not been sufficiently transparent or accountable to the public.

Underlying the dissent are complaints that the district has not taken a hard enough line against antisemitism, echoing unrest within the Democratic Party nationally that has grown since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel.

“There’s a lot of distrust among parents with the school district,” said Rich Lester, the unendorsed Democrat mounting the opposition campaign, who faults the board’s communication around a budget shortfall and complaints about antisemitism. “If you’re cutting things, you need to tell people. If you’re running education campaigns to combat antisemitism, you need to follow up and tell people what’s going on.”

The board’s president, Kerry Sautner, said in a statement that she and her running mates “unequivocally condemn antisemitism.”

Of the board’s handling of the $5 million budget shortfall — which administrators have said will require some schedule and busing changes — Sautner said the budget “can be complex.”

“The best way to stay informed,” she said, is to attend or watch finance committee meetings.

Sautner — who was briefly removed from the primary ballot after a challenge to her financial disclosure forms — is running alongside fellow incumbent Anna Shurak and newcomers Juanita Kerber and Jennifer Rivera.

“School board races across the country have become more heated, and Lower Merion is no exception,” Sautner said in the statement, sent on behalf of the slate. “With real concerns about the future of public education, it’s understandable that emotions are high.”

On its “Elect LMSD” website, the slate frames the election as a fight to protect public education.

“Political groups and misinformation campaigns are working to divide our community, weaken DEI initiatives, and undermine the democratic values that define our district,” the website says, adding that if the slate loses, the district risks rolling back equity policies and “allowing external political agendas to influence local education decisions.”

Asked which groups and political agendas were at work in Lower Merion, Sautner referred to “federal threats,” including to dismantle the federal Department of Education.

The mailer that compared some of Sautner’s opponents to Trump was sent out by the Democratic Committee of Lower Merion and Narberth, Sautner said. She said that her slate “has its own materials that have been shared with voters, focused on keeping our schools strong, inclusive, and accountable to the community we serve.”

The Democratic committee‘s chairperson, Jeff Scott, said the party wanted to ensure voters knew that three of the candidates on the Democratic ballot were backed by the GOP. (Candidates in local races are permitted to cross-file and run in both parties’ primaries.)

“We’re just trying to convey information to Democratic voters,” Scott said. He said the party had sent similar mailers in past elections, “not garnering any reaction that I’m aware of.”

Scott added that the candidates — Talia Nissim, Deena Pack, and Jacob Rudolph — “didn’t need to pursue or accept the endorsement of the Republican Party.”

The candidates are part of the “Imagine Better LMSD” slate, along with Omer Dekel, who is running solely on the Republican ballot.

“We are not here to burn books, or ban DEI, or abolish the DOE,” said Dekel, who objected to the Trump comparison. He said the candidates sought the Republican endorsement after being rebuffed by Democrats. (The Democratic committee said that Dekel never formally sought its endorsement and noted that Dekel is a registered Republican.)

Dekel said he decided to run for school board after his son, a Welsh Valley Middle School student, experienced antisemitic bullying. He said two other candidates on his slate — one of whom is a student at Harriton High School — also had personal experiences with antisemitism in the district.

Echoing complaints from some other Jewish parents, Dekel said he felt the district did not treat antisemitism as seriously as other types of hate.

He took issue with information a Democratic committeeperson distributed to door knockers that characterized his slate as using allegations of antisemitism to undermine DEI. Dekel said the message was “basically belittling all of us.”

Lester accused the Democratic committee of an unfair endorsement process after a party leader e-mailed members the night before the endorsement vote, describing Lester’s answers to a question about how he would handle budget cuts as problematic. (Lester, who founded a business that owns veterinary hospitals, had said he would evaluate essential vs. nonessential spending, and suggested the district could consider increasing class sizes in older grades and cutting courses with limited enrollment.)

The Democratic committee said in a statement that its endorsement process is open and transparent, with committeepeople who “take the time to speak directly with candidates and constituents before casting their votes.”

“We understand there’s always room for improvement, and we welcome feedback,” the committee said.

It also said that it is “focused on running an objective, fact-based campaign,” with candidates committed to “strong, inclusive public schools.”

“With public education under growing pressure nationally, from efforts to defund the Department of Education to attacks on how history is taught, it’s more important than ever to elect local leaders who reflect the values of our community and are prepared to protect our students,” the committee said.

Lester said the endorsed Democrats have wrongly injected national politics into a local election. In one mailer, he wrote: “We need a school board that puts our kids before their politics.”

Asked what he meant by that, Lester said the board was “sometimes a little too left.”

“If a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan was asked to speak at the district, it would be a hard no. … If a supporter of Hamas comes to the district, it’s not a hard no,” Lester said. He then said he was “not going to opine” on whether a Hamas supporter had spoken in Lower Merion schools, but noted recent controversy around some speakers.

Sautner said in her statement that under her leadership, the district “has implemented antibias education, launched reporting systems and partnered with organizations like The Jewish Federation’s community arm, JCRC, the Weitzman Museum and Stand with Us.”

Lester said he has raised $10,000 from friends and is self-funding the rest of his campaign; he said he is “putting a lot of money into the race” but declined to comment on how much. Scott, of the Democratic committee, said he did not know how much the party had spent on the school board races, but said it was in line with past elections.

In light of his disappointment with the campaign process, Lester said, if he loses, he won’t get involved in local politics again.