School News

The Southern Lehigh School Board will hold a special meeting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the boardroom of Southern Lehigh High School to vote on both a separation agreement and mutual general release agreement between the district and Superintendent Michael Mahon.

Allentown school directors approved the $1.14 million partnership Thursday. The agreement runs from next month to June 30, 2028.

Alicia Knauff will start as the new acting head principal of Allen on Monday. She was hired as the principal of the school's Ninth Grade Academy before being tapped shortly after for the acting head role.

Superintendent Carol Birks said she doesn't have to talk about where she lives. School directors defended Birks from social media posts questioning her residency.

The Lehigh Valley’s James Lawson Freedom School is a six-week summer program that uses a multicultural literacy curriculum and an intergenerational teaching model.

Alicia Knauff is poised to take over as the acting head principal of the high school just months after she was hired as the first principal of Allen’s Ninth Grade Academy.

The district will keep the building and surrounding property with the intention of reopening the school at a later date that has not yet been determined.

Lehigh has been hosting SSP’s International’s Summer Science Program this summer. During the five-week course, students get hands-on experience completing college-level research while getting a feel for campus life.

Aryash Shyam, a rising eighth-grader at Lehigh Valley Academy Regional Charter School, created the GreenBeam to kill weeds with a laser. The project got him named the Pennsylvania State Merit Winner in the 2025 3M Young Scientist Challenge.

The state Office of Open Records has ordered the Allentown School District to release records connected to BusPatrol, the contractor responsible for administering the district’s stop-arm camera enforcement program.

Conservative Republican slates targeting LGBTQ issues and library books swept GOP primary races across three districts. Democrats and moderate Republicans who cross-filed landed victories on the Democratic ticket.

Six candidates were poised to move on to the general election for the Bangor Area School Board, eliminating half of the incumbents in the race.

The primaries winnowed the field for Pen Argyl Area School Board, but voters in Pen Argyl and Plainfield Township will have more decisions to make in November.

First-time candidate Cindy O'Brien won the Republican primary in the race for Bethlehem Area School Board.

Two of the three candidates supported by Moms for Liberty Northampton survived the primary, both being in Region I.

The students will present their original scripts for the first time at a performance at Zoellner Arts Center on Friday, May 19.

The race featured two slates of Republican candidates and one Democrat. One slate of candidates took a pledge to enact policies regarding LGBTQ students and "woke" curriculum.

The two opposing candidate groups in the Parkland School Board race have won the Democratic and Republican nominations, according to unofficial results.

Unofficial results in Northampton County show the incumbents are in control on the Republican primary. Meanwhile, the slate of challengers dominated in the Democratic primary.

The two slates of candidates in the hotly contested East Penn school board race will appear on the November ballot .

The Parkland School District budget that was voted on and approved Tuesday night includes a 2.5% property tax increase. The tax hike is district's highest in the past seven years, but is still the lowest millage rate in Lehigh County.

The school board approved a preliminary budget Monday night. It does not raise property taxes in the 2023-24 school year.