Pa.'s Superintendent of the Year

Joseph J. Roy ’09 Ph.D., superintendent of the Bethlehem Area School District and former member of the Dean’s Advisory Council for Lehigh’s College of Education, has been named the 2017 Pennsylvania Superintendent of the Year. 

The prestigious award, given by the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators, recognizes Roy’s leadership and communication skills, his professionalism and community involvement.

“It’s a great personal honor,” said Roy, who received a doctorate in educational leadership at Lehigh. “But what made me feel best was the reaction of the folks in the district—parents, teachers and kids—about how proud they were that their superintendent got this recognition.”

In a statement, Mike Faccinetto, president of the district school board and president-elect of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, said, “Simply put, Dr. Roy is an extremely talented educational leader. He is a visionary at a time when politics and budgets in Pennsylvania don’t allow many of us to see past the next hurdle. Over his six-year tenure in Bethlehem Area, Dr. Roy has changed the culture, outlook and reputation of the district. I can’t imagine where we would be without Dr. Roy and his leadership.”

Roy has emerged both locally and statewide as a fighter for public education, a role he said he didn’t anticipate when he first took over as superintendent of Bethlehem schools six years ago. He recently co-wrote an opinion-editorial on the choice movement, which he says hampers public school efforts by diverting public dollars to privately run schools.

“When you become superintendent, you take an oath of office to the Constitution—U.S. and Pennsylvania,” he said. “The Pennsylvania Constitution talks about having a fair system of education for the good of the Commonwealth, not for the good of certain parents who get to choose a charter school. So the more hostile and the more political that [the issue has] become in pushing for the choice agenda, which hurts my 14,000 students, I had to step up and have more say about it.”

Roy is credited with playing an integral role in promoting confidence and pride in Bethlehem’s schools. He developed and implemented the district’s “Roadmap to Excellence,” which provides a framework for establishing goals for school improvement, and he implemented full-day kindergarten to help close achievement gaps.

He also promoted the power of community schools, securing partnerships with businesses, non-profit organizations and universities. Lehigh is among those partners, leading community school efforts at two of the district’s 22 schools.