K-12 News

Kids are singing more frequently and playing more instruments in city school classrooms, thanks to beefed-up state funding, according to educators. Cooking, nutrition and financial literacy also are getting more attention.

Take a look at stories that ran throughout the week of which we are most proud, had a profound impact on readers or that you might want to look at again.

Dieruff High School has been without a principal since April but will have new leadership beginning in January.

East Penn School Board voted Monday to realign grades K-8 as the decision making process to expand district facilities continues, planning to put grades 5-6 in one building and 7-8 in another once renovations are complete.

The Allentown School District Foundation has raised more than $8 million to support students in the city's schools since 2009. For reasons that aren't clear, the Allentown School Board is considering cutting ties with the foundation.

Coleman filed the transparency lawsuit in 2021 before becoming a Parkland School Board member, and ultimately, a state senator representing parts of Lehigh and Bucks counties.

School board races were among the most prominent contests Tuesday across the Lehigh Valley.

Preliminary results show a Democratic sweep in the hotly contested East Penn School Board race, over Republican challengers by over 1,000 votes each in the hotly contested and controversy laden race

In Southern Lehigh School District, 10 candidates faced off for five seats on the nine-member school board.

The unofficial but complete results for the 2023 Parkland School Board election results are in: the Democratic slate, made of mostly incumbents, has swept all six seats.

Freedom High School senior Jerry Rivera has been awarded a four-year scholarship to Princeton University by QuestBridge, a national nonprofit that connects high-achieving high school seniors from low-income backgrounds with leading colleges and universities. A celebration of the scholarship was held at the high school on Tuesday morning.

Chris Herren will speak to students during the school day then host a free presentation for families at 6:30 p.m. Thursday

The audit of a dozen districts released last week has drawn the ire of school business experts.

A new program hitting Pennsylvania high schools is just one of many ways the state is responding to a teacher shortage that’s created cascading staffing challenges across the Commonwealth.

Central Bucks South High School librarian Matt Pecic said a principal told him to take down four posters with a quote from Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel.

The changes were previously criticized by one board member as 'hippy-dippy, woke stuff.' On Thursday night, they passed unanimously.

Superintendent Joe Roy says no violation of law or regulation was found. But the Pennsylvania Auditor General's Office said the district had other options at its disposal rather than relying on taxpayers.

Easton has been struggling with a shortage of school bus drivers for at least the past few years. Students were getting to school late or getting home late, so the district purchased software last year to design bus routes instead of doing them by hand to find efficiencies.

District Business Administrator Robert Saul presented a draft preliminary 2023-24 budget that shows a $7 million increase in projected expenditures, primarily driven by wage, benefits and service cost increases.

Under the proposal, history would be taught in themes instead of chronologically. ASD Board Director Phoebe Harris called it "woke" and opposes the change.

Some Lehigh Valley school districts are reviewing their safety protocols for responding to injuries at area football games after Damar Hamlin's recent collapse brought renewed attention to the dangers of the sport.

Levinson was originally appointed to the East Penn School Board in September 2018 and was later elected to a full four-year term in 2019.