When Listening Leads in Allentown

Member Profile

When Carol Birks arrived in Allentown, Pa., in 2023, she led by listening. Her first 100 days were intentional: meeting with every school leader, every department, all 2,600 employees, families, student advisory councils, board members, elected officials and nonprofit leaders. She asked three questions: What’s going well? What should we start or stop doing? And if you were superintendent, what would you do first?

“Everyone had an opinion,” Birks says, “and everyone wanted to be heard.”

That listening became the connective tissue of her leadership. It shaped a strategic plan crafted by a 100-person steering committee. It shaped “Real Talks with Dr. Birks,” conversations she still holds with staff across the district. And it shaped her biggest lesson so far: that listening well means listening past the first thing people say to the deeper thing they need.

The school board president, Andrene Nowell, has watched that instinct play out from the dais. “Dr. Birks is a transformational and forward-thinking leader who drives big-picture change while lifting up the people around her,” Nowell says. “She pairs high standards with a deeply human approach, actively listening to families and community members to build schools that are both highperforming and truly supportive.”

Birks practices what researchers call “level three listening” — not listening to respond or fix, but to understand what’s really being asked. She leaned on it early, when her appointment drew protest from community members who needed more than a title to trust her. Rather than take it personally, Birks stepped back. “This is not about me at all,” she says she realized. “This is about them feeling respected.”

She met repeatedly with the Allentown Latino Education Coalition, listening through hours of pointed questions about her vision for Latino students, who make up 77 percent of enrollment. As Nowell puts it, “Equity and inclusion couldn’t just be buzzwords. They had to be reflected in our programming and organizational structure.”

What emerged was a body of work: a dual language immersion academy, unique among traditional public districts in the region, plus a seal of biliteracy program and curriculum that lets students see their own culture and language reflected back at them.

The results have been measurable. Allentown’s multilingual learners have outperformed state growth averages. In year two of the strategic plan, 13 of Allentown’s schools exceeded the state’s average English learner growth rate of 32.4 percent, with the district posting 54 percentage growth.

For families, that same listening produced adult English classes, financial literacy sessions and plainlanguage explanations of how the school system and report cards work. This past year, the 16,500-student district offered six multi-week sessions of English classes for adults and, for the first time, one session of Spanish classes for English speakers, drawing almost 200 participants.

Families also told Birks they were tired of being sent from building to building for services and support. That feedback is now under construction as a new Family and Community Resource Center — one location for registration, mental health services, a health clinic, workforce development and adult classes, with space to hold 130 people.

“That direct line from community feedback to immediate action shows our families that their voices truly matter,” Nowell says, “perfectly bridging human connection with decisive accountability.”

Ask Birks what she hopes people remember about her impact, and she doesn’t reach for a title or a list of initiatives.

“I hope people remember a vibrant legacy of educational innovation and really deep human care.”

Elly Serrano is AASA’s senior marketing manager.