Palmerton Area School District directors were briefed on a series of changes to the district’s student handbooks for the upcoming school year on Tuesday, with a focus on updates related to construction, attendance policies, technology use, and consistency across grade levels.

High School Principal Paula Husar led the presentation, detailing the most significant updates to the high school handbook. She noted that the document is revised annually with input from teachers, administrators, and other stakeholders.

“As you learn throughout the school year, you see that you’ve got to change some things and make some things right,” Husar said. “In this case, we had to change some things because of the upcoming construction projects.”

Palmerton is still in the planning phase of two major projects, the first of which is a new administration building proposed off the west side of the high school gymnasium.

The most substantial change, Husar said, involves student parking due to the upcoming construction project.

“For the first semester, there will be no changes, because we found out yesterday that’s not going to be an issue,” she said. “Second semester ... it’s going to be in a lottery format.”

Criteria for lottery eligibility include senior status, good attendance, and no significant disciplinary issues.

“With attendance, we’re not talking three or four days, but when you start missing 15 days in a semester, you’re missing a lot of time,” Husar said.

She noted the lottery system is “new to Palmerton,” as parking had previously been readily available.

“We have to get ahead of it,” Husar said. “You can’t be kind of like scrambling around, especially when they start moving everything on site to do their work, to find out what we’re going to do.”

Husar also addressed students enrolled in Lehigh Carbon Community College courses.

“We just stressed the fact that the students taking LCCC courses should be self-motivated. There should not be attendance issues,” she said. “There’s not going to be anybody on the other side of the LCCC course to say, ‘Hey, you have to log in,’ or ‘Hey, you have to come to class.’ It just doesn’t work that way at the college level.”

Tardiness remains a challenge at the high school level, prompting the school to implement a tiered approach.

“If you come in ... and you miss a block, you’re missing 76 minutes of class time,” Husar said. “So that’s a lot of time.”

The new policy includes a Level One tardy from 7:30 to 7:35 a.m., and a Level Two tardy for any arrival after 7:35 a.m. Students will continue to receive three free passes.

“We recognize just as adults things happen and the kids might be late,” she said.

Technology use, specifically the care and maintenance of Chromebooks, was also addressed. Husar said the devices were “getting beaten up” and that many students were coming to school without charging them. The handbook now includes “friendly reminders” about charging Chromebooks and guidance on proper handling.

Working papers, another frequently asked question among students and parents, are now covered in the handbook with detailed instructions on how and when to access them.

Elementary Principals Ralph Andrews and Kelli George said their handbook updates followed a similar review process, which begins each summer by looking back on notes taken throughout the school year.

Their updates included policy changes related to attendance and participation in extracurricular and band activities.

“We do not have any authority in preventing kids from playing the booster club programs and those things based on their grade behaviors and attendance, but the things that we can control at school, we will,” Andrews said.

They also aligned the elementary school Code of Conduct with the junior high and high school handbooks and updated snack policies to ensure families provide appropriately labeled items for classroom use.

“Even though we sent home that information at the beginning (of the) school year ... we made sure that was in the handbook for this year,” Andrews said.

Directors expressed support for the uniform format across the district.

“The high school handbook has always been very well organized and easy to follow,” board member Sherry Haas said. “So it’s nice to see that if they have kids in elementary school and kids in high school, they’re going to see the same format all the way through.”