A decision by Palmerton Area School Board to start a committee workshop a half-hour later than previously advertised has drawn criticism from several residents.

The committee workshop started at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, in contrast to the 5 p.m. start time the district had advertised both in the TIMES NEWS and on the district's web site several months ago.Resident Josann Harry questioned why the change in Tuesday's start time wasn't advertised on the district's web site,

www.palmerton.org.Resident Randolph Getz then accused the board of being in violation of the Pennsylvania Sunshine Law.Board President Barry Scherer told Getz an advertisement was previously placed in the TIMES NEWS."We don't advertise for every meeting," Scherer said. "We blanket advertised in December."Getz rebutted that "it acts like you're hiding meetings."Director Susan Debski said the reason why the district doesn't advertise for every single meeting is "to keep the cost down on advertising."But, Director Carl Bieling said "there's things on tonight's agenda that we didn't discuss at last month's meeting."Also at the workshop, the board heard a presentation from high school instructor John Hrebik about the purchase of science textbooks.Hrebik said the cost to purchase the textbooks would be $49,884. He said the funding for the textbooks would come from this year's budget, whereby the district had $70,000 budgeted.Director Carl Bieling asked whether all of the material inside each textbook would be covered, to which Hrebik said that was unlikely."It's just a shame we have to put out so much money and not use all of it," Bieling said.