Hotly Contested Perkiomen Valley School Board Race Ends With Three GOP, One Democrat

PERKIOMEN, VALLEY, PA — With less than 100 mail-in votes left to tally up countywide, it appears as though the race for Perkiomen Valley School Board is finally over, with three Republican candidates joining one Democratic candidate as the newly elected school directors.

The race, which pitted a slate of four Republicans calling themselves Flip 4 PV against a slate of Democratic candidates dubbed PV PerseVere, was hotly contested, as there were no incumbents in the contest.

According to the most recent unofficial election results from Montgomery County, the final winners of the race were Republicans Rowan Keenan (5,192 votes), Don Fountain (5,188 votes) and Jason Saylor (5,162 votes), as well as one of the Democratic candidates, Tammy Campli, who received 5,028 votes.

The county election returns website shows that all in-person precincts have been tallied and that most of the outstanding mail-in ballots from across the county have been tabulated, except for just a very small number.

It appears unlikely that any of the remaining 97 votes from across the county would impact the end results of this race in any meaningful way, so it seems like the board now has three new Republican members and one new Democratic member who will need to work together on school district business in the years ahead.

The Republican team is saying they look forward to the business of school district governance in Perkiomen Valley.

"I am looking forward to serving as a School Director for this great school district. I want to make sure we never forget our true role of oversight and holding people accountable for their actions," Saylor said in a statement to Patch. "I have been a member of this community since 2006 and plan to be here for the rest of my life and the chance to bring level headed leadership to our district very much excites me."

Fountain said he is committed to doing his best to ensure that the Perkiomen Valley School District can be the "best that it can be."

"Being elected as a member of the school board was an honor and one that I do not take lightly," he told Patch. "I am hoping to bridge the differences that have divided the district and help to bring a sense of unity recognizing that we all want the best for our kids. There is a lot of work that needs to be done and I am very excited to get started."

Keenan, an attorney by trade, said that he is "grateful for this opportunity to serve.

"I hope to run the district more like a business where our business is education," he stated. "I will do my best to earn the trust you have bestowed in me."

There was some slight controversy during the race, when it was rumored that the Perkiomen Valley teachers union urged people to not vote for Fountain because of his crossing the picket line during a teachers strike many years back.

Fountain, who worked as a guidance counselor in the district at the time, previously spoke to Patch about the matter.

This weekend, the Perkiomen Republican party took to social media to celebrate the results of the 2021 municipal election.

"We have FLIPPED the Perkiomen Valley School Board!" the Perkiomen GOP stated on its Facebook page.

Still, the fact that Campli got elected along with the slate of Republicans showed that there was still some interest among the community in having a balance on the board.

Campli told Patch that she was honored to have gotten elected to the body.

"I look forward to doing the good work of supporting students while maintaining integrity and transparency," she wrote to Patch. "There are no more opposing slates and there are no more republicans versus democrats. There are just 9 individuals working together as a team for kids and I look forward to every moment of it. PV Proud and PV Strong!!!"