In a brief public meeting on Tuesday evening, the board voted unanimously on policy changes, staff hires and to discontinue using Study Island software.

The board moved forward with a three-year contract with IXL Learning of San Mateo, California, for educational software to replace the Study Island. The software serves kindergarten through fifth grades. According to the board’s education committee, the IXL Learning platform is a better option because it conforms to Pennsylvania education standards and offers more personalized assessments.

The contract with IXL caps the total expenditures over the next three years at $35,125. Assistant Superintendent Stephen Toth characterized the change as being “basically budget-neutral.”

In other business, the board approved various September 2018 bills to be paid totaling $1,442,338, as well as retroactively declaring Aug. 28 as an Act 80 Day for elementary buildings only.

Staff hires included Krysten Montiero as an elementary teacher, Step 1, with a salary of $40,623, per the teachers union contract. Megan Hine, Pamela Sabath, Tatevik Sakash, Frank Berleth, Brianne Hayle, Brett Hoch and Nancy Pacchioli were hired as substitute teachers.

All items passed on an 8-0 vote. Thomas Rottet was absent from the meeting. On payment of bills, board President Larry Wittig abstained as the bills included payment to Tamaqua Transfer & Recycling, a company Wittig owns.

Board member Nicholas Boyle spoke on behalf of the high school football team in asking the superintendent why the team couldn’t wear newly purchased polo shirts on game day.

“Wearing logos is against our policy. You cannot wear them unless it’s a dress-down day,” Kinder told Boyle. Kinder also said there were four scheduled dress-down days throughout the school year.

No members of the public were present.