Debate over a proposed Lehighton Area School District elementary center raged on Monday night, eight days before a public hearing on the topic.

During the school board's monthly construction workshop, Superintendent Jonathan Cleaver gave an update on design discussions related to the new school that, if built, would replace four current elementary schools with one K-5 building.The latest talks centered on a revised parking area for buses that would allow for added parent drop off space, an 80-space faculty parking lot, two soft play surfaces and one hard surface featuring two basketball courts, and sinks located outside the toilet facilities so staff will have an easier time monitoring students.Cleaver also gave the board a comparison between the proposed Lehighton school and the recently completed Gettysburg Middle School, which opened at the start of the 2014-15 school year.Quandel Construction was the construction management firm for the Gettysburg project and was hired to oversee the Lehighton project."The Gettysburg school was 190,000 square feet and came in at $35.7 million, including soft costs," Cleaver said. "We are projecting a $32.5 million elementary center at 146,000 square feet."Board member William Hill Jr. referenced a $67.8 million estimate, which Cleaver said covered all the borrowing in the district and its included interest.For middle and high school renovations, the board has already approved $8.45 million in Qualified Zone Academy Bonds, with 1.5 percent interest over 10 years; a $10 million TD Bank loan, with 2.5 percent interest over 10 years; and a $5 million bond, payable over 25 years."I'm very nervous," said Hill. "I think the board needs to look at having a voter referendum in November and the question should be, do you want to get a $32.5 million bond for an elementary center project? People are uptight about this. I haven't run into anyone who is really on board with this project."The discussion has taken place and Cleaver said the board did not feel that was a direction it wanted to go at this time."If that was the case, the high school and middle school renovations should have been included in that," Cleaver added.Fellow board member Rocky Ahner said he still hasn't seen an estimate of how many teaching jobs would be lost if the new center is built."I'd rather have the jobs," Ahner said, rather than borrowing more money."I also don't like the design of not having bathrooms in the kindergarten classrooms. Everyone I've talked to from other districts said that is great for the transition of the student from home. Why are we cutting that out?"On the jobs issue, Cleaver said the district has no intention of letting any teachers go due to the shift to an elementary center."As people retire, we would then evaluate that position and go from there," he said.Cleaver said bathrooms in each kindergarten classroom weren't a priority for teachers in the district."They indicated they would rather have the square footage," he said. "There is a shared bathroom space centrally located between classrooms for each grade level. When you put toilets in each classroom and make them ADA compliant, you lose a lot of classroom space."After Hill said he didn't see any way the school would cost less than $38 million to build, Larry Stern, board vice president, offered an opposing view on the financial outlook for the project."We can't continue to think the world is going to go into the toilet," he said. "The numbers may come in better than what we project. Until we go through the preliminary steps to get to more precise costs, how will we know the hard numbers? When we get specifications and bids back, then we can get some intelligence around decisions we need to make."As is required by the state, Lehighton is holding a public hearing at 7 p.m. March 17 at the administration building regarding the elementary center.Anyone interested in speaking at the hearing should call 610-377-4490 by noon on the day of the hearing.Speakers will be limited to three minutes but may be given the opportunity to speak longer after everyone has had a turn.