This winter, Lehighton Area School District has much to be proud of in two of its student organizations.

At last night's monthly school board meeting, student representatives from Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship spoke to the club's progress.

S.A.G.E., a global network of young entrepreneurs that aims to promote social impact and responsibility, is a new club at the high school, but it has hit the ground running.Christi Marchetti of the school's Language Arts department serves as advisor to the already 30 students who have joined the club. Marchetti is impressed with the size of the club, and expects it to grow as it matures and begins to recruit students from the freshman class.S.A.G.E. started or plans to start a number of businesses in the community, including a school store and a farmer's market.The school store is the largest of the businesses and is open to students, faculty and the public. The profit from the apparel and stationary at the store will be used to host a German exchange student in the district, combining the community entrepreneurship of

S.A.G.E. with its global scope.The high school's Future Business Leaders of America club competed in their yearly regional competition on December 21 against four other schools. Many Lehighton students won in team and individual events and have been invited to compete at the state leadership conference in Hershey on April 4-6Lehighton will send a large team that will span nearly all areas of the business competition including accounting, economics, business ethics, public speaking, marketing and business law.FBLA has grown from 55 to 77 students since last year, in no small part due to depth of the experience of the clubs two advisors. Kim Mychaliszyn-Simko has been with the FBLA for 24 years, Matthew Fisher for 7 years. An advisor is typically involved for 2 or 3 years.Fisher noted that nearly all of the students who placed at the regional level are involved in sports and other clubs, a fact that makes their accomplishments all the more impressive.The board approved $2,500 of supplemental funding to allow the students to attend the three day competition.Superintendent James Kraky recognized the nine members of the school board for their hard work and announced that Shull-David, Mahoning and East Penn elementary schools and the Lehighton Area middle school earned the Keystone Achievement Award.The award is earned by Pennsylvania public schools that achieve adequate yearly progress two years in a row.Principal Tim Tkach presented Shawn Hindy with the National Field Hockey Coaches Association High School Mideast Region Coach of the Year. In his five years with the program, his record stands at 110-12-1, with a state title, 4 district titles and 4 league championships.The board approved a proposal by Omega Systems to run a network legacy analysis to determine network problems in the district's network, for a quoted cost of $2,100. A network legacy analysis will examine outdated and inefficient technologies and methods.Make-ups for snow days will occur on Friday, February 18 and Thursday, April 21. The other two make-up days will be added on to the end of the year.Due to inclement weather, the first two meetings of the middle school building project task force committee have been rescheduled for February 1 and February 15 at the middle school library from 7 to 9 p.m. Members of the public are welcome and encouraged to attend.