BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2013 Just days after approving what school leaders described as a “difficult budget,” the Bethlehem Area School District has chosen a new leader.<\/p>\n
Monday night, school board members appointed Renato Lajara to succeed retiring Superintendent Jack Silva and lead one of the region’s largest school districts through its next chapter.<\/p>\n
The timing is significant.<\/p>\n
Lajara takes over at a time when Bethlehem schools face the same financial pressures confronting districts all across Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
Monday night’s vote not only marks the end of Silva’s tenure but also puts a new leader in charge at a critical moment for the district.<\/p>\n
With applause from the audience, BASD members officially appointed Lajara as the district’s next superintendent.<\/p>\n
Lajara arrives just days after the board approved what district leaders called a difficult budget.<\/p>\n
The district recently worked through a multimillion-dollar budget gap driven by rising costs, including employee benefits and charter school tuition expenses.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s bittersweet,\u201d Silva said.<\/p>\n
Silva leaves after more than 40 years in education and nearly three years leading Bethlehem Area schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of community connections to maintain and expand, and in that relies a lot for our kids,\u201d Silva said.<\/p>\n
Lajara paves the way as the first Latino superintendent in Bethlehem Area School District history.<\/p>\n
He worked as the assistant superintendent in North Philadelphia and Kensington.<\/p>\n
Lajara is expected to officially take over the job later this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2013 Just days after approving what school leaders described as a “difficult budget,” the Bethlehem Area…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,1412,222,95927,95926,95929,95928,56487,6378,17057,15761],"class_list":["post-220129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-bethlehem-area-school-district","tag-budget","tag-dr-jack-silva","tag-dr-renato-lajara","tag-education-administration","tag-latino-superintendent","tag-leadership-transition","tag-pennsylvania-schools","tag-school-board","tag-superintendent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}