School News

Allentown School District held a kickoff event Thursday at South Mountain to tell students and families about the Verizon Innovative Learning Schools program that gives each student an iPad for the school year.

Parkland High School teachers reported suspected misconduct by ex-performing arts administrator Frank Anonia more than a decade before his arrest on charges of secretly recording a student in a dressing room, a former teacher testified. Anonia is due in court for a criminal trial this week.

The Lincoln Leadership Academy Charter School in Allentown held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its $16.8 million school for fourth-to-eighth graders on Friday morning.

Commonwealth Charter Academy, a large, public, cyber charter school for all school-age children, plans to convert a nearly 47,000-square-foot, one-story building into office space for teachers and staff at 2200 W. Broad St.

Critics of the hiring process argued for a superintendent search instead of a direct appointment. Others said Karen Trinkle had more than proven herself ready to lead, and a search would be lengthy and costly.

Planned to open to students for the 2027-28 school year, the roughly $59 million project will go up on the same land as its predecessor facility, which dated back to the 1930s.

School directors voted 5-2 to approve Ethan Ake-Little’s resignation and settlement agreement. His resignation takes effect Aug. 31.

Southern Lehigh school directors appointed Karen Trinkle as chief of schools. They also approved a settlement agreement with Ethan Ake-Little, the HR director who filed discrimination and retaliation complaints against the former superintendent.

Ethan Ake-Little has been suspended with pay since June while the district investigated allegations about his job performance. Ake-Little previously filed discrimination, retaliation and fraud complaints against the former superintendent.

Additional cleaning and air quality testing remain underway at Sheridan and Ritter elementary schools, Allentown School District said in an update Sunday.

A report from Stanford University found enrollment in public schools in the United States fell by more than one million students last fall.

At Lehigh Carbon Community College (LCCC), fewer students are signing up for classes this semester, even when compared to fall 2020.

The Bethlehem Area School District is giving students and parents COVID-19 vaccines ahead of the new school year. The vaccine clinics are a way to bring children up to speed on their shots.

All students in the Bethlehem Area School District will be required to wear masks this fall.

Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration is trying a two-pronged approach to keep K-12 school environments safe from a recent surge in COVID-19 cases.

Pennsylvania’s largest teachers union, which represents nearly 200,000 teachers and school workers on Monday commended the Pennsylvania Department of Health after it announced a plan to bring free COVID-19 testing and vaccination clinics to schools statewide.

The Bethlehem Area School District has added a new position to address the social and emotional needs of students and staff. The move comes as schools bring kids back to full-time in-person learning this fall.

No masks will be required at the region’s Catholic schools this fall according to word from the Diocese of Allentown in a letter sent to parents on June 30

Lawmakers joined the governor in Harrisburg on June 30 to highlight something education advocates have been calling for for a while: a boost in funding for some of the commonwealth’s poorest school districts.

In districts across the Lehigh Valley, teachers are using the next two months to help kids catch up on learning lost to the pandemic.

Pennsylvania House Republicans voted to prohibit schools and universities from requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for students — and to strip the state health secretary from being able to order certain emergency public health measures in the future.

In Allentown on June 21, education advocates, parents, and students marched to support Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposed changes to the way the commonwealth funds its schools.