ALLENTOWN, Pa. – A rainbow of shovels are digging a new pathway for education in the Allentown School District.<\/p>\n
The district has broken ground on a new building for students.<\/p>\n
“It feels good for the community,” said Zayn Alraei, a fifth grader.<\/p>\n
Alraei is sporting a hardhat and wearing his heart on his sleeve, as he helps break ground on a historic milestone.<\/p>\n
“Feel proud, proud of yourself,” said Alraei.<\/p>\n
The two-story, 208,000 square ft. Allentown K-8 Academy at Northridge is officially under construction and will soon bring learning to a new level.<\/p>\n
“It’s about collective impact and our collective vision and shared governance and vision so that we can ensure that all of our students get what they deserve,” said Allentown School District Superintendent and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Carol Birks.<\/p>\n
Birks said it has been decades of promising and hoping for the facility, that’s being built at the site of the former Allentown State Hospital.<\/p>\n
It’s going up at 1600 Hanover Avenue, on the city’s east side and will serve 1,200 students.<\/p>\n
“We’ll have a dance studio, we’ll have a culinary facility, where we have community facing properties. We’ll have a multi-purpose center,” Birks said. “Here’ll be many features of innovation and excellence in this facility.”<\/p>\n
A ceremony was held to celebrate the groundbreaking, with students, project architects, legislators and school officials getting right to work.<\/p>\n
“We’re inspiring hope and optimism and moving Allentown on a path for continuous improvement,” said Birks.<\/p>\n
Doors are expected to open in 2027.<\/p>\n
“It’s a good school. There’s so much more to do, and it’s entertaining,” said Alraei.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – A rainbow of shovels are digging a new pathway for education in the Allentown School…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[719,153,155,154,25986,25985,17043,25987],"class_list":{"0":"post-43615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-allentown-school-district","9":"tag-bethlehem","10":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","11":"tag-bethlehem-news","12":"tag-dr-carol-birks","13":"tag-education-facility","14":"tag-groundbreaking","15":"tag-zayn-alraei"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43615","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=43615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}