Jim Thorpe Area School District’s board of directors voted unanimously Wednesday to adopt “Cengage: Math & You” as the new math curriculum for grades six through eight, approving a six-year contract totaling $98,404.75.

The cost will be split into two payments under a deferred plan — $49,202.38 due July 1, 2026, and the remaining $49,202.37 due before Oct. 15, 2027.

The district spent most of the past school year evaluating four competing programs. Curriculum Director Kimberly Zoba led teachers from both elementary schools, Penn Kidder and LB Morris, through the process, deliberately withholding cost information from evaluators until after they had scored each program on a nine-page evaluation tool.

“I didn’t want (cost) to be too much of a factor,” Zoba said. “I wanted the best fit for the students. I didn’t want to say, well, this is the cheapest, so let’s get this one.”

Teachers from both buildings — including regular education and special education staff — evaluated all four programs independently before making their recommendations.

“I had them create a document and list the things that they were not happy with in terms of their current program,” Zoba said. “And when they saw the new version of the program, they were able to then check off those things, and those were the items that were enhanced for this version.”

The selected program is an upgraded version of the curriculum the district was already using, a factor that teachers said made the transition more appealing. The new series is Pennsylvania-aligned.

When cost was finally revealed after evaluations were complete, the program that scored highest with teachers also turned out to be the least expensive of the four options over a six-year subscription.

“There are many programs out there,” Zoba said. “Some are all the way to the right, digitally. Some are still the very traditional textbook and workbook, things like that. We tried to find something that was in the middle and it was a good fit for our students.”