Allentown School Board approves resignation of new director of transportation; bus routing will continue to be outsourced

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Allentown School Board on Thursday approved the resignation of the newly hired Transportation Director Randy Williams, stopping a plan officials said would cut costs and approve student attendance from moving forward.

The board also approved the demotion of former Allen High School Principal Cheryl Clark by a 7-2 vote, with Directors Lisa Conover and LaTarsha Brown voting no.

An attempt by Conover to table the vote also failed by a 7-2 vote along the same lines.

• ASD school board accepted the resignation of new director of transportation
• Some transportation operations will not move in-house this school year
• The board also demoted former Allen High School Principal Cheryl Clark

The moves came as the board accepted the district's personnel report at its meeting.
As part of the district's budget discussions and presentations this year, then-Interim Business Manager Charles Linderman and schools Superintendent Carol Birks promoted the idea of moving transportation operations.

The proposal would include taking over the routing of bus runs from First Student, effective the 2023-24 school year, and using school buses for ASD students, especially those who walk more than a half mile to school.

Charter school students would use LANTA buses, which some ASD students now use free to get to school.

They touted the plan as a way of improving student attendance and cutting costs.

'That takes time'

The board hired Williams on May 25 at a per diem salary, with his salary $120,000 as of July 1. Williams said he was only with the district for a couple of weeks.

"I know that the superintendent and the board are very, very much interested in the study, changing walked zones, maybe changing times. But a lot of that stuff can't just be done like poof, tomorrow," Williams said.

"So to bring the routing in-house, that takes time."

Williams said he decided to stay with his current employer, Wilson School District in West Lawn, Berks County. According to personnel reports, Williams' first day was June 1 and his last day was June 29.

ASD Finance Director Diane Richards said the district was not moving forward with the transportation proposal because Williams resigned and there was not enough time before the start of the school year to put the plan into place.

"Everything will stay the same for the 2023-2024 school year," Richards said.

The board approved paying $39,000 in April to Edulog, a school bus routing software company, to do a transportation optimization study. An ASD spokeswoman said on May 24th that the study was on hold until a transportation director was hired.

Superintendent Birks said the district's budget won't be deeply impacted by waiting to implement this idea. She said it is actively pursuing another transportation director candidate.

"We've budgeted strategically so that we have some funding for a rainy day," she said. "So it won't have a significant impact on our level of services, and our other programming because we budgeted strategically."

Richards said Edulog did not do the study because of a data issue. The district never paid for the study, she said.

Clark becomes assistant principal

Clark was demoted to an assistant principal position.

The demotion resolution would take effect July 31 and set her salary at $105,000 a year. Clark was hired in August 2022 by former Superintendent John Stanford at a salary of $137,000.

The district placed Clark on administrative leave in April after months of complaints from staff, students and parents about her leadership style.

Frank Derrick, the district’s director of recruitment and retention, replaced Clark as acting principal of Allen after Clark was relieved of her role for the rest of the past school year.