The 2012-2013 final budget was passed at a regular Jim Thorpe Area School Board meeting in recently. The final budget was passed at 44.52 mills, with no millage increase. There will be no tax increase for the 2012-2013 school year.

The budget had been on public display for 30 days following the approval of the proposed budget at a previous meeting. With the approval of the final budget it will now be submitted to the Pennsylvania Department of Education.In other news, David McAndrew, Assistant Principal at Lawrence B. Morris Elementary School, presented information about a summer reading challenge to the board.Students in Kindergarten through 8th grade, at both the L. B. Morris Elementary School and Penn Kidder Campus, are encouraged to participate in the Scholastic Summer Challenge, Read for the World Record.Jim Thorpe's goal for the summer reading challenge is for students in grades Kindergarten through 8th to read a combined total of 800,000 minutes. That goal can be reached if every student in those grades reads 15 minutes per day.The amount of time (minutes) spent reading by the Kindergarteners through 8th graders will go towards the Scholastic Summer Challenge. The Scholastic Summer Challenge goal is to beat the world record of 64,213,141 minutes read by students.The L.B. Morris Elementary School and Penn Kidder Campus libraries will be open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m.- Noon for the students.Students and parents can track their progress at

www.scholastic.com/summer.In other news, the school board and administration welcomed Brian Baddick, the new Special Education Director. Baddick was approved as the Special Education Director at a regular board meeting in May.There will be no school board meeting tonight. The next school board meeting will be July 30th at 7 p.m. at the District Office.