21News

We can't go into the new year without recognizing those who have retired! We had four women with a combined 85 years of CLIU21 experience retire including 35 years from Connie Schultz!

o better way to celebrate a two week holiday break from school than a little party! Joann Lutz in our MDSB classroom at Northwestern Lehigh High School always has a bunch of Christmas fun each year! She always bakes a ton of cookies which the kids love decorating with sprinkles and colored frosting! And we were able to celebrate the two birthday boys, Connor and Matthew!

IU21 not only helps our member school districts, but we work to bring students from different high schools together! This event is called Student Forum, and each participating school hosts other students and advisors at a place in their community.

Snowflakes, stories, movement, and so many smiles    Our final Sensory-Friendly Storytime & Movement event of 2025 was amazing! We cannot do these without Migrant Ed, Special Olympics Pennsylvania, and the Allentown Public Library. They are full of heart, made possible by the most amazing rockstar volunteers and library partners!

Today is about much more than the meal. It's about the people you share it with, all the other people in your life who have lead you to this point, or maybe the things you have that bring you happiness.

In our Life Skills classroom at the LB Morris School in Jim Thorpe, our students reflect on what they are thankful for! And they wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

Let's give a warm Thanksgiving welcome to our newest group or CLIU21 employees! A smaller starting class, but it gave us a better chance to get to know one another! We have two instructional assistants, a speech therapist, a teacher, and someone working with our IT department!

Welcome to the team!

Another lovely Thanksgiving gathering at one of our schools last week! We had quite the spread at our Allentown Learning Achievement School in Center Valley. Students also took part in serving food for others. The food was so amazing and so flavorful! Dr. Flood is not shy with the cayenne pepper!

This ALASgiving was a great way to celebrate our students, staff, and new building.

For the last day of American Education Week, we are celebrating our substitutes! When our educators are sick or absent due to something unforeseen, these people fill in to keep the classroom rolling! John Edelman is one of our longest tenured substitutes serving us for over 23 years!

John loves working with students of all ages and programs. After reflecting on a long career with us, he says, “I enjoy working with the kids and seeing them make progress. I like to get back to classrooms to see the kids I’ve worked with before, see staff I haven’t seen in awhile. It’s nice to see I’ve worked with toward the beginning of my career, and sometimes I get a chance to see them later on when they’re almost done with school.”

Thank you to all of our substitute educators!

On day four of American Education Week, today’s theme is Educator for a Day! Although our teachers, paraprofessionals, and itinerant staff are showing up every single day to Help our Children Learn, there’s a whole lot these children teach us, too!

When you spend time with special needs children, you realize how smart they really are. Your worldview on special education and these kids will change. They can have just as much emotional and educational awareness as anyone else. They just need a little extra help. So take some time and let a child with special needs educate you for a day!

We're in the middle of American Education Week, and today we're highlighting our brand new schools in Center Valley! One location, two schools. Our Allentown Learning Achievement School and our Lehigh County Enhanced Autism School are housed in the same building. It's a major upgrade from where we were before, and our students&staff can feel the difference.

In this video, we talk about what it took to bring this project together, how the school year is going so far, and what plans we have for the future!

The second day of American Education Week is Family Day, and what better way to celebrate than having a Thanksgiving meal at school! Sharing food and memories with people we spend a lot of time with!

The staff at the L.B. Morris School in Jim Thorpe put out quite the spread, bringing multiple classrooms together!

All week CLU21 is celebrating American Education Week, and we sure had a Kickoff Day to remember! We want to thank J.B. Hunt Transport Services for selecting all of our IU21 special education classrooms in Weisenberg Elementary for their Adopt-A-Class program!

They gave students free t-shirts and hats to wear, but the best part was letting our students sit in the cab of a semi-truck! They even got to honk the air horn! These are smiles and memories we will not forget. Thank you to the JB Hunt team for an incredible time!

Thanksgiving came early for our kiddos at Panther Valley High School! Last week our special needs classrooms came together for a Thanksgiving luncheon, so of course turkey had to be on the menu!

It's that time of year to think about the winter holidays (Sorry, Thanksgiving!) as we roll out our 2025 Holiday Basket Raffle! Supporting the Carbon Lehigh Special Needs Childrens Foundation, you can buy tickets to win 14 different baskets ranging from lottery tickets to chocolate lovers!

Tickets are $1 a piece or $5 for 6 tickets. You can purchase them at the CLIU21 main office, or buy them online @ www.CLSNCF.org. The drawing will be held on December 15th!

Some more Halloween fun! Leanne Thomas' MDSB classroom at Peter's Elementary carved a pumpkin into a classic Jack-O'-Lantern! They started with the crown/cap, then cleaning out the pulp and seeds inside. They finished by carving out the eyes, nose, and smile before putting in some spooky lights!

It's a busy Halloween week at IU21!

At our Whitehall-Coplay Early Learning Center, we're having trick-or-treat in the hallways going classroom to classroom! We have Elsa, Ms. Rachel, Spongebob, a Penn State Cheerleader, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Peter Pan, and so much more!

Not quite a Halloween visit, but supervisor Brigid Messa went to her Catasauqua Middle School MDSB classroom dressed as Mother Goose! And with her she brought an interactive story and lesson!

She created a story using AI, and had students use a touchscreen to answer questions about the characters, making students exercise memory recall. Mother Goose was such a hit with the kids, we think they had more fun hanging out with her AFTER story time than during it!

This IU is full of bravery. Allyssa Helm, one of our teachers at the Whitehall-Coplay Early Learning Center, completed an Ironman Triathlon this past weekend in Wilmington, North Carolina! She swam, biked, and ran a total of 70.3 miles in 8 hours and 1 minute!

Allyssa trained for a year to do this, living out her mantra of, "Just Start." Her colleagues are so impressed with her resilience, determination, and her dedication to the students and her goals!

SPS Director Dr. Mark Scott, after 11 years with CLIU21, will retire after the new year. The board has approved Dr. Cathy Nelson to replace him. Congratulations to Dr. Nelson on this exciting new beginning! We thank Dr. Scott for all of his contributions and we wish him a happy retirement!

Each year we recognize an amazing educator, from the past school year, with an employee of the year award in honor of Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller's longtime companion teacher.

This year our winner is Heather Szoke, MDSB Teacher at Northern Lehigh High School! She's so grateful to receive the award, but understands it couldn't have happened without her paraprofessional staff. And she recognizes anyone who is dedicated to CLIU21 and their classroom are just as deserving of this award!

Twenty people are starting their professional journey with CLIU21! A great mix of professions getting ready to Help Children Learn!

Teachers, Instructional Assistants, Social Workers, Occupational Therapy Assistants, Vehicle Transportation Assistants, Early Intervention Facilitators, Computer Technicians, Speech Therapists, and Administrative Assistants!

Friday, October 10th was World Mental Health Day, and our IU21 Behavioral Health Department wanted to celebrate! they invited everyone down to their offices to enjoy some gluten-free treats and chat about what mental health means to each other! Fun activities also helped people reflect on mental health.

Welcome to a new season of the Helping Children Learn Podcast! We start off with our Annie Sullivan Award Winner from the 2024-2025 school year, MDSB teacher Heather Szoke!

Starting this school year, we will be acknowledging our retirees after they're done dedicating their careers to Helping Children Learn!

Our first one is Instructional Assistant Sonia Garcia! Thank you for 25 years of excellence in the classroom!

Are you or someone you know actively looking for help with mental health? Whether it's autism support, medication management, substance abuse services, or if you have other needs, we encourage you to visit Project AWARE PA Findhelp. It's a free, online directory that helps school staff and families quickly connect students (ages 0–21) with local mental and behavioral health providers.

If you are a community member, use this link: PROJECTAWAREPA.FINDHELP.COM

If you are a school staff member, use this link: PROJECTAWAREPASTAFF.FINDHELP.COM

And remember, if you need immediate support, you can always dial 988 to speak with someone right away.

September is Deaf and Hard of Hearing Awareness Month, so our student Faith is recording a Pledge of Allegiance sign language video for her entire school!

Let's all welcome our orientation class of new employees for the month of September! We're bringing on teachers, transportation staff, instructional assistants, a speech therapist, COTA, job coach and payroll specialist!

Welcome to CLIU21, everyone!

We all know the main school year is the end of August through mid-June, but it's vital for our special needs students to continue their education through the summer! That's why CLIU21 holds Extended School Year at five different sites all over our region! And we're always trying to make it fun with a theme.

Watch the video to see what we're doing and why it's so important!

#helpingchildrenlearn #extendedschoolyear #specialeducation #lehighvalley #pennsylvania

Our Behavioral Health Department here at CLIU21 wants everyone to know about 988 day! 988 is the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline for anyone dealing with mental health struggles, emotional distress, alcohol or drug use concerns, or just needing someone to talk to. You can call or text the number!

Our team of educators are officially ready for the classroom! Summer Academy has wrapped up! This is a time when our staff come together to learn updated rules & regulations, sharpen their skills, come up with new activities, and so much more to be prepared for the new school year. We even make sure we practice first aid with Cetronia Ambulance Corps!

There's also the occasional group activity meant for fun like sidewalk chalk drawing! But it all comes back to Help Children Learn. See you in class next week!

From classroom teachers and aides, to job coaches and mental health workers. We brought in over 20 new employees covering a range of kills and positions!

This year's Opening Day ceremony at CLIU21 is quite fitting to our theme for the school year. "Individually United" is the recognition of everyone's work even though we are spread out in Carbon and Lehigh counties. We came together via Zoom from five different sites due to construction at our normal venue.

Between our district classrooms, center-based programs, and our itinerants and transportation folks driving all over every day... We all contribute to the singular mission of Helping Children Learn. This video encapsulates the hard work everyone does from wherever they are at!

CLIU21 Executive Director Dr. Gregory Koons is now the president of the Pennsylvania Association of Intermediate Units!

We would like to give a warm welcome to our newest Director of Transportation, Lucia Miletto-O’Brien! Lucia comes to us with more than 20 years of experience in educational transportation.

She's ready to keep our children safe and push for the constant improvement of our team. Welcome to IU21!

We're always having constructive conversations with our educational leaders, listening to their needs, and making sure we're all heading in the right direction. Executive Director Dr. Greg Koons and C&I Director Eric Lech from IU21 are leading these discussions alongside Dr. Lauren Paterson from BloomBoard!

At this year's Education Leadership Forum, we're working on pathways into education for students and adults, retaining our best staff, recruiting educators to our schools, and other pressing issues.

Thank you for everyone who attended, and thank you to our speakers from Lehigh Carbon Community College, Allentown School District, Lehigh Career & Technical Institute, and Central Susquehanna IU16!

Join the CLIU21 team and make a difference in your community!

We're hosting walk-in interviews for our student transportation department:

• Tuesday, July 15th from 10am-1pm

• Tuesday, July 22nd from 10am-1pm

No application required - just show up!

• Vehicle aides start at $15/hr

• Van drivers start at $17.82/hr (bumps up to $20.25 after CDL testing to become bus driver.)

Plus, enjoy full benefits:

• Healthcare

• Pension retirement plan

• Summers off!

Help children get to school safely and be part of something amazing!

Look at these girls go!!! Each summer, we spend a group of our students to Girl Scouts Camp Mosey Wood for a week of fun in nature! They get to swim, row a canoe, shoot bow&arrow, and all sorts of camping fun!

In this video you'll see the girls tye-die t-shirts and go ziplining! And how all of these new experiences make them a better person when they leave.