Lehighton Area School District should learn within weeks whether the state will help pay for a high school roof project the superintendent says can’t be put off much longer.

Superintendent Jason Moser told the school board Monday the district applied for roughly $1.9 million through the state’s Public School Facility Improvement Grant program, with a 25% local match the board approved. Award announcements are expected around or before mid-November.

There is no guarantee any of it comes to Lehighton.

“We could get anywhere from $1.9 million to zero,” Moser said.

The money would go toward recoating the high school roof. Moser said the work would extend the roof’s warranty another 25 years.

“It’s a pretty significant project that needs to be done,” he said. “We’re not in dire straits at this point in time, I don’t want to give that illusion, but it’s certainly something that we can’t defer for very much longer.”

Moser laid out three reasons he believes Lehighton’s application sits in a decent position.

The state roughly doubled the money available this cycle, he said, putting two cycles’ worth of funding into a single round of awards. The committee that reviews applications has historically favored roof projects. And Lehighton has never applied for or received one of these grants before.

“They do like to spread the wealth,” Moser said. “They tend to historically like roofing projects because schools need to have good roofs.”

He told the board his timing estimate comes from informal channels rather than any state announcement.

“We get information from various sources, from people who are lobbying down to when I’m at superintendent committee meetings,” Moser said.

The outcome will shape what the district does next on facilities.

“Once we know whether we will receive anything toward this project, we will begin putting together a capital improvement and maintenance plan for budgeting purposes for the 2027-28 budget,” Moser said.