The Jim Thorpe Area School District Board of Directors last night approved a proposed plan to convert the elementary center on the Heights into a middle school for exclusive use of seventh- and eighth-grade students.

The proposed conversion plan has an estimated cost of $541,950.

The conversion process will take an estimated 18 months to complete with Everett Associates, Allentown, engineering and architectural firm, to be in charge.

The middle school will accommodate an estimated 200 students. Pupils from kindergarten through sixth grade will be housed in the new L.B. Morris Elementary School now under construction on West 10th Street.