Jim Thorpe Area High School students may soon be electronically connected through a proposed initiative to buy laptops.

This week the board discussed the One to One initiative, which would provide all students with a laptop to use both in school and at home to do school work.Board member Bill Allison said that the program, if approved, would be first implemented in the high school next school year."Only a handful of high schools in the region are fully computerized," he told the board. "We are going to be one of the few."We're going to get our kids prepared to really succeed in the 21st century."Joe Brown, director of Technology and Information for the school district, said that the cost of the program would be approximately $50,000 for the 620 computers for the high school. He said the overall the bill would be just $30,000 over what the district is currently paying.The laptops, which cost $850, would be under a four-year lease, and then would be able to be traded in for credit for new computers.He said that as the program expands to the district's other schools, the program would eventually help finance itself through the leases.Brown said he is currently looking at various funding streams and grants that may be available to help cover the cost of the computers.Board member Walter Schulz, who said he was not opposed to the initiative, questioned how the students would be connected to the Internet.The board will continue to investigate the program.In other matters, the board acted on the following items:• Accept the resignations of Lindsey Miller and Ann Marie Miller, para-professionals.• Approve the provisional 90-day employment of Michele Peterson, para-professional, at $11 per hour. The provisional employment is due to Act 168, which makes sure personnel working with children do not have a criminal background.• Approve the posting of two para-professional positions.• Approve an out-of-state field trip for the Civil War class and History Club.• Approve a new 0.5-credit elective, Game Design, at the high school.• Approve the student Rotarians for the month of March: Erin Kelly and Jeanna Struble.• Approve the March Student of the Month: Jesse Witt.In addition, members of Boy Scout Troop 555 visited the meeting as part of their communications badge. The boys introduced themselves at the end of the meeting.