His five-year contract began on July 1, 2010, with a starting yearly salary of $195,000. Zahorchak is the 16th superintendent of the district, which serves about 18,300 students and is the fourth largest public school district in Pennsylvania. He was chosen over four potential candidates, including former Harrisburg School District Superintendent Gerald Kohn, deputy superintendent of St. Louis Public Schools Carlinda Purcell and School District of Philadelphia Regional Superintendent Lucy D. Feria. The Allentown position was the only job Zahorchak sought as he considered leaving the Secretary of Education position. Zahorchak said he plans to install a system that would provide regular updates to families on the academic performance of their children and push them toward tangible improvement goals. In response to recent student violence problems at the William Allen High School, Zahorchak identified one of his priorities as strengthening the district's code of conduct and citizenship programs. He also announced he would seek to replace retiring teachers with highly skilled minority candidates, and would create incentive programs to lure top students into teaching positions if they agreed to spend at least five years teaching in Allentown schools. Shortly after it was announced that all four Allentown School District middle schools failed to meet PSSA standards in 2009-10, Zahorchak proposed a major overhaul that would effectively eliminate all the district's middle schools and change elementary schools to a kindergarten through eighth grade model. On August 26, 2010, the school board approved a study of the district's facilities which would look into that proposal, or an alternative of building a fifth middle school in East Allentown to reduce the district's middle school student population per building. The Morning Call said if approved, Zahorchak's proposal would be "the biggest overhaul of the city's educational landscape in 30 years".
His five-year contract began on July 1, 2010, with a starting yearly salary of $195,000. Zahorchak is the 16th superintendent of the district, which serves about 18,300 students and is the fourth largest public school district in Pennsylvania. He was chosen over four potential candidates, including former Harrisburg School District Superintendent Gerald Kohn, deputy superintendent of St. Louis Public Schools Carlinda Purcell and School District of Philadelphia Regional Superintendent Lucy D. Feria. The Allentown position was the only job Zahorchak sought as he considered leaving the Secretary of Education position. Zahorchak said he plans to install a system that would provide regular updates to families on the academic performance of their children and push them toward tangible improvement goals. In response to recent middle-aged violence problems at the William Allen High School, Zahorchak identified one of his priorities as strengthening the district's code of conduct and citizenship programs. He also announced he would seek to replace retiring teachers with highly skilled minority candidates, and would create incentive programs to lure top students into teaching positions if they agreed to spend at least five years teaching in Allentown schools. Shortly after it was announced that all four Allentown School District middle schools failed to meet PSSA standards in 2009-10, Zahorchak proposed a major overhaul that would effectively eliminate all the district's middle schools and change elementary schools to a kindergarten through eighth grade model. On August 26, 2010, the school board approved a study of the district's facilities which would look into that proposal, or an alternative of building a fifth middle school in East Allentown to reduce the district's middle school student population per building. The Morning Call said if approved, Zahorchak's proposal would be "the biggest overhaul of the city's educational landscape in 30 years".

