ALLENTOWN, Pa. – It isn’t just students getting ready to head back to the classroom.<\/p>\n
In Allentown, teachers and staff prepared for the 2026 school year with a back-to-school convocation celebration.<\/p>\n
“I feel grateful, I feel humbled, and I feel honored to serve with tremendous people who care and love our children so much,” said Superintendent Dr. Carol Birks.<\/p>\n
It was all fun and games at the PPL Center where more than 2,500 educators and staff came together to reconnect and prepare to welcome 16,000 students into a new school year.<\/p>\n
“You saw the love and energy. Many of our staff members have been here for many years, and so it shows that they believe in our vision and the work that we’re doing ahead and that they really love Allentown School District,” said Birks.<\/p>\n
While the event kicks off a new year with a clean slate, it also builds on momentum from years past including the people who go above and beyond, teachers like Dr. Jennifer Dodd.<\/p>\n
“Dr. Dodd is an exceptional jewel. I mean, you ask her to do anything; she will do it. She loves the students,” said Birks.<\/p>\n
Dodd, the choir director at Dieruff High School, has spent 28 years with the Allentown School District. Dodd taking home the top honor of teacher of the year.<\/p>\n
Dodd was surprised with a video about the impact she has had.<\/p>\n
“You know, you don’t often get to see and hear from your students after they graduate, so to see what impact that you have was just that. That got me emotional. I love them all,” said Dodd.<\/p>\n
Dodd calling the recognition an honor.<\/p>\n
“Just remember your passion and why you’re here. It’s tough to be a teacher every day. You know, we deal with lots of challenges, and so just embrace it and remember why you do what you do, and it’s really for the love of the students,” she said.<\/p>\n
The new school year officially kicks off on August 24th when students are welcomed back into Allentown classrooms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – It isn’t just students getting ready to head back to the classroom. In Allentown, teachers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[119,719,44072,153,155,154,60229,10206,25986,112667,558,112666,31057],"class_list":["post-267146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-school-district","tag-back-to-school","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-convocation","tag-dieruff-high-school","tag-dr-carol-birks","tag-dr-jennifer-dodd","tag-ppl-center","tag-school-celebration","tag-teacher-of-the-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267146","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=267146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}