Palmerton Area School District is hoping to land a large state grant that would fund most of a window replacement at S.S. Palmer and the Parkside Education Center.

The school board Tuesday night passed a resolution giving administration the go ahead to apply for a $1.2 million Public School Facility Improvement Grant. If approved for that amount, Palmerton would have to kick in a $400,000 match.

“We’ve been talking about a window replacement at Parkside for some time and with this grant opportunity and the requirements attached to it, we expanded that to include all of the windows at S.S. Palmer as well,” Superintendent Dr. Jodi Frankelli said.

Pennsylvania offers the Public School Facility Improvement Grant to public school districts and career and technical schools for crucial building upgrades. Funded at $100 million, the program prioritizes improvements to existing infrastructure. Grants range from $500,000 to $5 million, and schools can apply for multiple grants but cannot exceed 20% of the total funding. The application period expires on May 31.

“We estimated the cost for the replacement at Parkside to be about a little over $500,000 and the Palmer replacement to be almost $1.1 million,” Frankelli said. “If we were to secure this grant, the district would essentially be paying $400,000 for $1.6 million worth of work, which would be a huge win for us.”