Nearly three years after the district first began studying its aging facilities, shovels will finally be hitting the ground at Palmerton Area High School.

The district’s building and grounds director, Trahn Thompson, told the school board at Tuesday’s workshop that topsoil removal is set to begin next week at the high school, where crews will construct a two-story addition housing a new secured entrance, additional teaching spaces and renovated administrative offices.

A separate 11,000-square-foot district administration building is also part of the project, to be constructed on the lawn west of the high school gymnasium.

“We are on schedule to start removing the topsoil by mid-next week,” Thompson said. “Myself or (Assistant Superintendent) Ryan Kish will be updating you every workshop on the progression of the project.”

The project — for which the board approved more than $12.9 million in construction contracts in April, with a total project cost of $14.9 million once all expenses are included — cleared two key milestones in the days before Tuesday’s meeting. A pre-construction meeting was held May 27 with project architect KCBA Architects, engineering firm Keystone Consulting Engineers and the district’s contractors, with Kish, Director Earl Paules and Thompson also attending. Days later, on Monday, the district met with the Carbon County Conservation District to address a required stormwater permit under the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System, a federal Clean Water Act program that governs how construction sites manage runoff. Hanover Engineering and representatives from Lower Towamensing Township attended the environmental session alongside the project team.

The new entrance, designed by KCBA Architects, will be located on the east side of the building near the junior high school parking lot. The design calls for a secure vestibule monitored by a receptionist or safety officer, an internal lobby and a final checkpoint before visitors can reach administrative offices — a significant upgrade, officials said, from the building’s current open-entry layout.

Tuesday’s discussion also turned to a procedural question the project’s pace will eventually force: how to handle change orders without halting construction while the board only meets once or twice a month.

“With our last project, the weight room, the board gave Earl the ability to say yes or no to change orders before bringing it fully for a vote,” Kish said. “I want to discuss how we plan on going about it for this project, since it could impact the timing of certain things.”

Paules illustrated the problem with a simple example.

“Small things — like a door — if it was $150 and they couldn’t get that door in time, but the other one was $250, they don’t want to wait for that,” Paules said.

The board settled on a framework in which the building and grounds committee, made up of Paules and Director Rob Moyzan, can approve change orders up to a cumulative total of $10,000. Once that threshold is reached, the committee must bring any additional change orders to the full board for a vote before the work can be completed. Even change orders leading up to the $10,000 threshold must be retroactively approved by the board.

Kish said he would keep the entire board in the loop regardless of the dollar amount.

“Either way, it’s a board decision,” he said. “I’ll send an email to the board with what’s going on.”

The district’s administrative staff has been working out of temporary leased space along Forest Inn Road since May 2025, waiting for construction to be completed.