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.
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The farmers' market almost disappeared in the early 2000s, but community support helped revitalized it. -
A pretrial conference was held Wednesday in federal court stemming from Liberty High School Assistant Principal Antonio Traca's federal civil rights lawsuit against retiring Superintendent Joseph Roy and the Bethlehem Area School District.
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Speakers accuse public school officials, teachers' unions of trying to "sexualize children" or indoctrinating them. Some called for restricting LGBTQ books. Protestors traveled from the Lehigh Valley and beyond to stand against the Moms for Liberty's "extremism" and in support of LGBTQ people.
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Public school advocates worry vouchers will divert money from public education into charters or private schools.
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Maria Shantz was one of a group of Republicans who signed a controversial pledge to create policies around gender and rejecting "wokeness."
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Lehigh Carbon Community College and Northampton Community College received money from the Pennsylvania Department of Education to help adults learn English.
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Moravian University and Lehigh Carbon Community College are working to remove barriers for Black and Latino high school students.
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School board members say a lack of internal controls contributed to the problems. They say the situation is being fixed.
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Benita Draper was the director of equity initiatives for the Bethlehem Area School District and a former elementary school principal.
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Paraprofessionals can get certified for free while continuing to work in their schools.
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The school district denied the application earlier this year. STEAM charters are also applying for charters in Bethlehem and Whitehall.
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The 11-year-old Golden Retriever comforted Stephen Zamojski, whose Saint Bernard recently passed.
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Capt. Jonathan Taylor's sword is on display at Nitschmann Middle School. He died in early 1863 after being wounded 105 days earlier at the Battle of Fredericksburg.
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Former board members Nancy Wilt, Patrick Palmer and Evelyn Santana did not seek re-election.
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Three Republican school board members are now part of the panel governing Nazareth schools, including two endorsed by the Moms for Liberty Northampton County chapter.
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Allentown School District didn't attach the new food services contract to its Nov. 16 agenda despite union's assertion the school board had the final draft when it voted.
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Under current plans, the new school would be built in 2025-2026 and replace the one that goes back more than 100 years.
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A state mandate requiring schools to identify sexual content in books could cost Lehigh Valley school districts significant time, money and resources.
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ASD Schools Superintendent Carol Birks said she believes it will take at least six months to determine the best ASD outcomes for graduates.
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LehighValleyNews.com has requested a copy of the five-year contract, which is retroactive to July 2022. A media law expert says the details should have been available to the public when the board voted on it.
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Gov. Shapiro, Lehigh Valley lawmakers acknowledge political divisions, outstanding education fundingMembers of the politically divided Pennsylvania Legislature must compromise on a fix to resolve education funding inequities to the state's poorest public schools.
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The athletic director announced the middle school cheer team's winter season was being postponed “with careful consideration and commitment to the overall well-being of our students.”
