
Sarah Mueller
Education reporterAn experienced journalist, I joined LehighValleyNews.com as its education reporter. I bring several years of media experience at public radio stations including NPR Illinois, WFSU Public Media and Delaware Public Media. I’ve covered state and local government, interviewing lawmakers, governors and congressional leaders. In my personal life, I’m a passionate animal lover, hiker and documentary enthusiast. A documentary for which I worked as a researcher, Fire in the Meadows, won first place at the 2022 Tallahassee Film Festival for best documentary short film. It explored the effects of an investor buying a local mobile home park, raising rents and forcing tenants out of their homes. Contact me at SarahM@lehighvalleynews.com or and subscribe to my newsletter here.
-
Parents in many area school districts are back to buying their childrens’ school lunches after pandemic-era universal free school meals ended. But price increases in food and housing costs, some families are struggling to pay those lunch bills.
-
The $21M plan affects 1.7 million children across the commonwealth.
-
Lawmakers this year approved an additional $79M for high-quality preschool programs.
-
Speeding and a lack of police presence are among the issues, according to residents.
-
Staff vacancies are the most pressing issue affecting Pa. schools, according to the PSEA.
-
Parents and teachers have complained for years about the lack of air conditioning in several of Allentown School District’s classroom buildings. But parents of one student with medical conditions say they worry the recent heat is endangering their child’s health.
-
Muhamad Diop is charged with making terroristic threats and harassment, authorities said.
-
Allentown School District classes start today, Monday Aug. 29, for the district’s more than 16,000 students.
-
District Attorney Jim Martin said that people in the community should delete the video found on social media that shows a child being sexually abused.
-
The state's Basic Education Funding Commission held its first meeting in Allentown to collect testimony on fixing Pennsylvania's school funding formula after a landmark court ruling declaring it unconstitutional.
-
State Senate Republicans added vouchers back to the budget while cutting Level Up funding for Allentown and Bethlehem Area school districts.
-
The Satanic Temple sued the Saucon Valley School District after district officials reversed course and barred the After School Satan Club from meeting in district buildings.
-
There's two new candidates in the Allentown School Board race and one in the Southern Lehigh School board race.
-
The Lehigh Valley child care centers already have long waitlists, staffing shortages and high costs.
-
It's inspired by a hierarchal basic needs pyramid proposed by American psychologist Abraham Maslow in the 1940s.
-
The National Weather Service in Mount Holly, New Jersey, is predicting highs in the 90s through Thursday. The Allentown School District sent students home early Tuesday because of the heat.
-
Sairett Rosario is the first female football player at Broughal Middle School since Alondra Cruz played football there in the 2017-2018 school year.
-
Former Allen High School Cheryl Clark was demoted to assistant principal last month.
-
The event included choral and dance performances by teachers and students.
-
Some Lehigh Valley school districts are seeing an increase in chronic absenteeism and truancy following the COVID-19 pandemic. And what was already an issue before COVID appears to have reached a level of urgency in some schools.