The first Northwestern Lehigh School Board meeting of the 2025-26 school year on Aug. 20 began with Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Holman honoring John Casciano, Joe Fatzinger and Todd Leiser for their years of service to the school district.

“So Pennsylvania School Boards Association has recognized three of our dedicated school board members for their years of service to the Northwestern Lehigh School District and so for more than 40 years PSBA has celebrated the commitment of local school directors through what is called an honor roll program,” she stated. “So their recognition is a way of thanking individuals who exemplify leadership and who give generously of their time and talents for the benefit of public education and the students of our Commonwealth.”

School directors are recognized beginning at five years of service and for every five years thereafter, Holman added.

“This evening I am pleased to present honor roll certificates to three school board members who have each dedicated ten years of service to the Northwestern Lehigh School District, Mr. John Casciano, Mr. Joe Fatzinger and Mr. Todd Leiser. So on behalf of the Northwestern Lehigh School District thank you for your leadership, for your commitment and for your countless hours you give to the students at Northwestern,” Holman stated.

Under personnel matters on the agenda the board approved the retirement of Karen Lapos, administrative assistant to the Director of Curriculum, after over 21 years of service to the district, effective Jan. 5, 2026.

The board also approved the business administrator contract for Christie Steigerwalt for a term which commenced on Aug. 21 and ends on June 30, 2028 for an annual salary of $133,045.

Under new business on the agenda, the board approved a motion to accept the donation of an upright piano for the Northwestern Lehigh Middle School music program.

Holman said this donation to the middle school music classroom is for general music.

She added the piano that was there had some broken keys and starting to age with how often it has been moved around.

In other new business, the board discussed the issue of members of the community using the track at the stadium.

Dr. Lauren Hunsicker began the discussion.

“With the recent changes with soccer and junior high school varsity as well as several community members it is was brought up to me to ask or to find out which again not looking for any answers tonight but the reason why we don’t have any open stadium hours where people could go and use our tracks to run or to walk being that we’re in a rural community there’s not sidewalks,” Hunsicker asked.

As you know people can’t run over at the recreation fields, that’s not always the best for people with mobility issues being it’s not a flat surface, it’s kind of a little bit hilly and then uphill, it’s not overly fun but it does make a difference, so I had said that I would bring it up at our next meeting to see if that was something that could be done, she added.

“I know several other high schools that have like a nice flat track that’s done the way ours is, they can open it up to community members at times to be able to use it as well as even just their own students that want to train,” Hunsicker stated. “Obviously not everybody has the opportunity to go up there you know outside of the normal practice hours to use it so I just wanted to see if there are other local stadiums that are open.

“I’m not necessarily stating that it needs to be open all the time but I didn’t know if there was a reason why it’s not and if so could there be some kind of compromise that’s made available for people to use it should they want to. Like I said, not looking for any hours now, I just said that I would try to find out the reason why it’s not open for community members. They brought up the fact that they’re taxpayers and they would like to use it if possible.”

Jason Zimmerman with the Athletics and Student Activities department at the high school responded.

“We do have that in place. The problem is the hours are very limited because our stadium is pretty full, but we do have those hours so those folks are more than welcome to email me if they can’t find it on our website,” Zimmerman said. “During the summer I think they’re open while people are here until 3 p.m. and then in the evening so long as nothing is in there it’s open until I’m going to say 8 p.m., don’t hold me to that but we have that in place already. “

Hunsicker then asked Zimmerman, “so if there are students in their practicing, the community is not able to use the track.”

Zimmerman responded.

“Not really because for the same reason we need to get clearances on everybody, we don’t have any control on that,” he stated. “There’s some interesting things that do happen in that stadium, regardless of that also being said when the gates are open most people won’t go in there out of respect for the other programs. The bottom line is we have something in place and they are welcome to reach out to me and I can give them more details.”