As construction continues on Lehighton Area School District's new elementary center, the school board on Monday night turned its attention to what will be inside the building.

By a 6-0 vote with three members absent, the board approved a $516,239 furniture package from W.B. Mason Co."We were happy with the bids," said Dan Bierzonski of EI Associates, the architectural firm working for the district. "The whole package came in around $50,000 under budget."With Monday's approval, Bierzonski said the firm can prepare the contracts and send them out to get the process underway.Board President Gloria Bowman questioned the warranty of the furniture."I know with some of the upholstery in the elementary libraries, we had to replace that furniture after x number of years," Bowman said. "Some of the furniture really wears hard."The warranties are different depending on what the piece of furniture is, EI officials said, but on average it is around five years.When completed, the $33 million building will house all K-5 students in the district.According to Karl Kauffman, project manager for Quandel Construction Group, steel erection is complete for the school.Crews are working in three different sections; the south classroom wing, center core areas and the north classroom wing.The wings will contain K-2 and 3-5 classrooms respectively."We're expecting the building to be enclosed and watertight by the end of October," Kauffman said. "The project is on track as far as a timeline goes."Lehighton is planning to open the school for the 2018-19 school year.