Renaming Building 21 as Bridgeview Academy and shifting its focus to artificial intelligence, health care and computer science is one step in the Allentown School District’s investment in the future.
A new AI policy, staff professional development and student summer courses at DeSales University are among the district’s first moves toward implementing a vision Superintendent Carol Birks honed during a year-long Google GSV Education Innovation Fellowship, a nationwide education technology initiative.
Birks is a cheerleader for AI in education, seeing its implementation as a way to prepare Allentown students for high-demand careers and to keep the district on the leading edge of technological change.
“We’ve seen exponential growth and demand in this field of artificial intelligence and computer science and Allied Health,” Birks said. “And by devoting Bridgeview Academy to focus on those areas, it’s a great time for students to have more innovative and authentic learning experiences.”
Plans for Bridgeview Academy
Bridgeview Academy’s emphasis on computer and medical sciences is designed to take advantage of local employment opportunities in fields like advanced manufacturing and health care.
The district is talking to hospitals, nonprofits and other local employers to develop internships to supplement the high school’s classes.
Course topics at Bridgeview Academy will range from broad subjects like data science and AI ethics to specialized fields such as autonomous systems, natural language processing, and blockchain and cybersecurity.
The district aims to build partnerships with surrounding universities for students to take more advanced courses, with DeSales University and Penn State-Lehigh Valley already on board, Birks said in a recent interview.
On the health care side, the hope is to build on students’ strengths by developing pathways such as a medical translator credential program, Birks added.
It’s early days for the new Bridgewater Academy curriculum. An incoming class of 150 students, drawn from districtwide applications, will start on the new courses this fall while already admitted students will take a mix of old and new courses as they work toward graduation.
Integrating AI into curriculum districtwide will mean ramping up training for staff, Birks said. An initial 10-person cohort will get Google coaching certifications to help train teachers, and Kiker Learning workshops have been used to guide the implementation of Google for Education programs that include Gemini for the classroom.
The district is soliciting proposals to see what additional AI tools it might want to purchase, Birks said.
The lessons Birks took from meeting with industry leaders and educators across the nation during her fellowship were joined with family surveys, focus groups and an innovation committee study to produce a wide-angle view on how the district can best use technology for learning.
“This was a real comprehensive look at the new direction for the district,” Birks said.
As the district works out the kinks of effectively employing AI, it’s also committed to long-term physical improvements to Bridgeview Academy. Construction plans to expand the high school will take years to complete, with a firm timeline set for only the first of three phases.
For Phase 1, new classrooms are in the works for next summer, and a Family & Community Resource Center that will offer health and social services is scheduled to be completed in December 2026, Birks said.
Budgets are yet to be finalized for Phase 2 — further classroom expansions — and Phase 3, a multipurpose center that would include a cafeteria.
Computers and community engagement
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Dieruff High School and Lehigh Carbon Technical Institute student Leahnelly Jordan,17, asks questions of Brennan Pursell, DeSales University business professor and director of the Center for Data Analytics and Applied AI, during the AI Institute summer program Wednesday, July 2, 2025, at the university’s Gambet Center in Upper Saucon Township. Artificial intelligence will be part of the new focus of Allentown’s Building 21 high school, which has been renamed the Bridgeview Academy of Health, Science, Innovation and Technology. The school will prepare students for careers in AI, computer science and health care. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
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Dieruff High School and Lehigh Carbon Technical Institute student Leahnelly Jordan,17, asks questions of Brennan Pursell, DeSales University business professor and director of the Center for Data Analytics and Applied AI, during the AI Institute summer program Wednesday, July 2, 2025, at the university’s Gambet Center in Upper Saucon Township. Artificial intelligence will be part of the new focus of Allentown’s Building 21 high school, which has been renamed the Bridgeview Academy of Health, Science, Innovation and Technology. The school will prepare students for careers in AI, computer science and health care. (Amy Shortell/The Morning Call)
The district is also building out the Allentown Summer AI Institute, an eight-week DeSales program on leveraging AI tools for data analysis, now in its second year. The program enrolls 20 students, who earn a stipend — up to $5,600 — and college credit.
The institute models how to use data analysis to address community needs. Last year, students examined air quality data from sensors placed in Allentown School District buildings. This summer they’ll be looking for the root causes behind eviction rates in the Franklin Park neighborhood.
The Franklin Park project started last summer with an effort to map businesses and analyze the quality of sidewalks. DeSales business professor Brennan Pursell said Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk remarked in a classroom visit that “most cities in the United States are governed by vibe” and that the students’ data would help inform the city’s Office of Civic Innovation.
Al lowers the bar for entry and allows students to learn the coding skills needed to scrape information from the web and analyze datasets. As the nature of knowledge work changes, knowing how to employ those skills will be key to students finding their place in the job market, Pursell said.
“The Allentown School District is doing something daring, and I think incredibly necessary,” Pursell said.
Students say AI has pros and cons
Institute attendees expressed both optimism about opportunities for district students and concerns about the technology’s impact on learning.
“I think everything is going to change with AI,” said Gabriel Molestina, a rising senior at Allen High School and early college student at Lehigh Carbon Community College.
Molestina envisions himself employing AI in a future job with the Air Force. AI should be used to help students accomplish projects, he said, but too many simply use it to cheat.
Building 21 graduate Laniya Anderson also noted the pros and cons of AI, saying it’s both a study aid and a force that has blurred the lines between fact and fiction.
“It’s a big question mark,” said Anderson, who will attend Moravian University in the fall to study business management and aims to one day open her own business.
Leahnelly Jordan, a rising Dieruff senior who studies criminal justice at the Lehigh Career & Technical Institute, sees herself applying her new data analysis skills to study crime rates. She wants to work as a police officer before becoming a criminal defense lawyer.
“Knowing how to do this can get you into so many different job fields,” Jordan said of AI-powered data analysis.
AI could prove a useful study aid to keep straight the details of complicated legal cases, said Dieruff graduate Yeisse Jimenez, who is headed to East Stroudsburg University as a pre-law student.
But Jimenez worries that AI tools could become an obstacle for English learners.
Jimenez, who served as a student adviser during the district’s innovation brainstorming, came to Allentown from the Dominican Republic three years ago.
As a sophomore, she found herself surrounded by fellow Spanish speakers in her English as a Second Language courses and said it was too easy to avoid practicing English.
Jimenez challenged herself in her final two years of high school, exiting ESL classes and taking on AP courses. Authentic language practice is necessary to prepare English learners for college-level work, she said, but the rise of ChatGPT and other AI tools means students can copy and paste translated content without learning the language.
“I know so many people, like friends, that are still learning the language, and they don’t actually practice because they’d rather use ChatGPT to do their homework,” Jimenez said, “and it is concerning because they don’t even know what they’re doing. They’re just translating things; they’re not practicing.”
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