William Allen High School

William Allen High School is one of two large, urban public high schools of the Allentown School District in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The school provides public education for grades 9 through 12. William Allen High School is located at 106 North 17th Street, Allentown. It serves students from center city and the city's westside. The city's other public high school, Dieruff High School, serves students from Allentown's eastern and southern sections. Until Dieruff's opening in 1959, William Allen High School was known as Allentown High School. As of the 2021–22 school year, the school had an enrollment of 2,801 students, according to National Center for Education Statistics data. High school students may choose to attend Lehigh Career and Technical Institute for vocational training in the trades. The Carbon-Lehigh Intermediate Unit IU21 provides the Allentown School District with a wide variety of services like specialized education for disabled students and hearing, speech and visual disability services and professional development for staff and faculty. In 2015, the school district opened Building 21 Allentown as an experimental high school which focuses on building passion among students through career exploration. William Allen High School is named in honor of William Allen, who founded Allentown in 1762, and also served as a mayor of Philadelphia and chief justice of the colonial-era Province of Pennsylvania.