BASD: Retired teachers recognized

Bethlehem Area School District principals Lisa Lynch, Timothy Lynch and Sonia Vazquez will retire at the end of the 2019 school year. They were honored recently for their dedication, selflessness and hard work.

Fountain Hill ES Principal Lisa Lynch started with the district in 1985 as a reading teacher at Broughal MS. She was subsequently assigned to Fountain Hill as a fourth and fifth grader teacher, then became Supervisor of Curriculum and Instruction at Broughal MS. She became the principal at William Penn ES in 2006 and became principal at Fountain Hill in 2010.

Hanover Elementary Principal Timothy Lynch started with 1984 as a speech therapist at Donegan ES. He was an ESL teacher/district wide speech therapist at Donegan, an instructional support teacher at Miller Heights and acting principal at Nitschmann MS. In 2010, he became principal at Hanover ESl.

Principal Sonia Vazquez started with the BASD in 1984 as an ESOL teacher at Fountain Hill and Northeast MS, was a Spanish I and Spanish for Native Speakers Teacher at Broughal; a bilingual, homebound, instructional support and special education programs teacher. She became an acting assistant principal, an assistant principal at several schools, and then became the principal at Donegan.

Student reps recognized

Several Bethlehem area students were honored during the May 21 Bethlehem Area School District Board meeting.

Those recognized were, from Freedom, Alianna Davis and Joshua James Konschnik, an alternate student board representative, who takes over Alianna’s position in September.

From Liberty, Elisabeth Lee and Zoey Rose Reifinger, an alternate student board representative, who takes over Elizabeth’s position in September.

Student school board representatives serve for a period of one year and attend monthly school board meetings.

District musicians selected for districts

Several Freedom and Liberty high school students were selected to participate in the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association’s District 10 music events. The instrumentalists/singers from FHS are Emily Barger, PMEA, District 10 Chorus and Region 5 Chorus; and Sean Bailis, PMEA District 10 Band.

The LHS students selected are Isaac Beaton: District, Region, and All-State Concert Band; Aidan Evans Gartley: District Band; Nicholas Miravich: District Orchestra, District and Region Band, and All-State Concert Band; Erin Nguyen: District and Region Band, and All-State Wind Ensemble; Angela Rhee: District, Region, and All-State Orchestra; Grant Sedlock: District and Region Band, and All-State Concert Band; and Chloe Wilcox and Julia Zheng: District and Region Orchestra.

Fountain Hill: Student is ‘Future Chef’

Anthony Kowalak of Sodexo introduced the Future Chef winner, Ibrahim Allaik, a fifth grader at Fountain Hill ES. He beat out other very talented students during the Future Chef competition held at Northeast MS earlier this year.

Freedom HS: Students honored at luncheon

Freedom High School students were honored at the 2019 Freedom HS National Merit Scholarship and Student Achievement luncheon held at the school April 26. Principal MIchael La Porta recognized the following students: Sean Bailis, District Band Qualifier; Emily Barger, District and Region Choir and All State Chorus first alternate; Joseph Fekete, SkillsUSA First place Districts, second place States with his team; Paras Chand and Morgan Philpot, first place special award at the Lehigh Valley Science and Engineering Research Fair; Advay Deshmukh, first place in Personal Finance at the State of Pennsylvania FBLA State Leadership Conference; Olivia Swiadek, Superintendent’s Moravian College Scholarship Award and was recognized in a letter from Congresswoman Susan Wild; Helen Brown, recognized for her actions of bravery during an incident where a BASD bus driver had a medical emergency; Rachel Iacovone, 2019 Teen of the Year by the YWCA; Justyna M. Sokolik, James E. Casey Scholarship; Joshua Konschnik, class of 2020, scored in the top 2.5 percent on the PSAT/NMSQT among all Hispanic and Latino test-takers in the region per the College Board; Orlando Burgos, Jon Michael Kennedy, Maia Titus, Larry Salgado and Matthew Samberg will join the United States Marine Corps; Charles McKelvey will join the United States Air Force; Katie Adamson, Angali Chhugani, Trevor Hartshorn, Kevin Ranieri and Sahil Shah were all National Merit Commended Scholars.