Northern Lehigh School District has received a grant earmarked to prevent absenteeism among its students.

Assistant Superintendent Karen Nicholas apprised the school board on Monday of the Student Truancy Outreach Program Grant the district received for Peters and Slatington Elementary schools.Nicholas said the objective of the grant is to prevent and stop truancy in an effort to benefit families with students in the district's two elementary schools."We're hoping that by doing this at the elementary levels, we can prevent truancy at the middle school and high school," Nicholas said. "We're very lucky to have received this grant."Also as part of her report, Nicholas discussed the Curriculum Maps for Math and English Language Arts."Our administrators and I have been working over the standards, and we are in really good shape in math," she said. "We're still working with our English Language Arts curriculum; I think we're making really good progress."Manufacturing grantNicholas introduced the board to high school instructor Chris Bennett."This video will show the progress our students have made," she said. "This high school teacher is absolutely outstanding, between the rapport he has with our students, and the work he's done on the video."Bennett then showed the board a brief video entitled "What's Cool About Manufacturing".He said the students worked with Effort Foundry, in Bath, which makes metal castings."The kids wrote all of the questions," Bennett said. "All the filming and all the questions were done by the students."Bennett then thanked middle school Principal Jill Chamberlain, as well as the students, for their cooperation in the matter."It was a great opportunity for the kids," he said. "It's a great resource for the students, parents and employees."