Behavioral Health Associates won't lease Rush Township Elementary School; instead the Tamaqua Area School District will contract with BHA to provide educational services at the school, according to action taken at a special meeting Tuesday afternoon.

Tamaqua Elementary School, which formerly housed second through fifth grades, will be reconfigured to contain kindergarten through fifth grade, which will provide a place for the kindergarten and first-grade students who formerly attended the Rush school.During the special meeting Tuesday afternoon, district officials voted to rescind the motion from a June 9 meeting which leased the Rush Elementary School to BHA, and instead "contract K-12 services with BHA to be performed at Rush Elementary."After the June 9 meeting, township officials had responded to news of the lease by sending the district a "notice of violation" claiming that the school district needed to apply to the township zoning hearing board requesting approval for the change for the building.Contacted Tuesday afternoon, township zoning officer Bill McMullen said he would consult the township's legal counsel before responding.After the meeting, school district Superintendent Carol Makuta said the district is doing its best to remain fiscally responsible. She said that according to BHA, 33 students from grades K-12 will attend the Rush school, and those students will be from the Tamaqua School District and other school districts that are members of Schuylkill Intermediate Unit 29.The kindergarten and first-grade students who attended the Rush school and are in the gifted program will attend West Penn Township Elementary School. Makuta said there are currently 41 students in the gifted program for elementary school students in the district; 17 of them were at Rush and will attend West Penn, where the gifted program is delivered. The Rush school students who were not in the gifted program will attend Tamaqua Elementary School.Teaching assignments and bus schedules are yet to be determined; the district doesn't set them until August, she said.Earlier this month the district approved the budget for the 2015-16 school year, which includes a $2 million deficit between revenues, $27.2 million, and expenditures, $29.2 million. To balance the budget without raising taxes, the district is taking the $2 million from the general fund, taking it to $1.4 million.BHA is listed on its company website as "a nonprofit health care foundation" that provides alternative regular education, special education services, academic assessment, behavioral assessment, restorative practices, social skills training and other services. BHA currently has locations in Lehighton and Weissport.In other action taken during the special meeting, the district will purchase 50 laptop computers from the state bid list at a cost not to exceed $25,000. The laptops will be used for the district's special education program.