The Tamaqua Area School Board discussed plans for its football field at a workshop meeting Tuesday at the Tamaqua Area High School.

Preliminary talks were held in regard to the state of the high school’s football field. Nobody argued that it needs attention.

Ken Dunkelberger, Chief Operations Officer, highlighted a handful of options ranging from $8,000 to $1 million. The cheapest plan would be to kill all of the grass and replant it.

This option would require daily maintenance. The most expensive option would be to install a turf field, which Dunkelberger said could cost just shy of $1 million.

“Unless someone comes up to us and writes the check for $1.2 million, we’re not going to do it,” Tamaqua School Board President Larry Wittig said. “I don’t buy that the synthetic turf cures everything. … Our job is to educate kids and give them the best opportunity when they graduate.”

Reading programs

Tamaqua Elementary School Principal Laura Shook wants to bring a custom pair of reading programs to the district.

“Our first reading program is a K-2 program and it’s a complete phonics-based multimodal program,” Shook said.

“That would have to be board approved, because it’s a new curriculum.”

The second program is for grades 3-5.

The district currently uses “Pearson Reading Street.” However, Shook said that her staff could develop a better plan.

“If a student comes to us in third grade, but maybe reading on a first-grade level, we’ll have the resources there for him versus a program that’s already pre-canned,” Shook said.

“We met as a group and a staff, we think that we can develop a program in-house that will better meet the needs of our students — something that will be multi-tier, versus a one-size fits all type of model.”

The one-year extension with Pearson would give Shook and her team the opportunity and time to build an appropriate program.

She hopes to implement the custom plan by 2021.