Jim Thorpe Area School District’s board of directors voted 6-2 on Wednesday night to seek proposals for a district-wide feasibility study that would evaluate the current and future needs of the district’s facilities, programs, and operations.

The study, Superintendent Robert Presley said, would offer recommendations for improvement and long-term planning.

“It is a study that districts do to help develop long-range plans,” Presley said. “The last one I could find here was from 2009. This allows us to go into each building and find areas where things can be improved. It will help us with long-term budgeting. It is a very comprehensive study.”

Presley acknowledged that one of the areas the study could address is building configuration, which has sparked some controversy among district parents.

Some parents have expressed their opposition to a rumored plan that would reconfigure the district’s elementary and middle schools so that all kindergarten through fourth-grade students would attend Penn-Kidder campus, while all fifth through eighth-grade students would be sent to L.B. Morris.

“Before the study gets rolling, I want to voice my concerns that if this is something you are looking at, it is the most insane idea I have ever heard,” Kathy Zurn, a Jim Thorpe parent, told the board. “We have one building on one end of the district and one on the other end. Instead of my five-year-old son going one block on the bus, you’re going to send him one hour out and one hour back. Route 903 is a dangerous road. Everyone probably knows someone who died on that road.”

Board member Paul Montemuro assured parents the study is not just focused on student placement, but on the overall condition and performance of the district.

“This study is not just on where students are going,” Montemuro said. “It is going to encompass the full district. It is on the parking lots, refrigeration, roofs, fields; everything in the district. It will be broken down to what is a must, what needs to be done in five years or what needs to be done in 10 years.”

Montemuro also encouraged the parents to get involved in the process and provide their feedback once the study is completed.

“All of that information will be public,” he said. “We will have committee meetings after the study comes back and that is when we need the parents to come and be involved.”

Board members Pearl Sheckler and Dennis McGinley voted against the feasibility study.