Palmerton Area School District learned recently it received $100,000 out of $1.5 million it applied for from a Public School Facility Improvement Grant it was hoping would fund window replacements at Parkside Education Center and S.S. Palmer Elementary.

Before applying for the grant in the spring, Palmerton got estimates on the window replacements. The lowest quotes came in at a little over $500,000 for Parkside and almost $1.1 million for S.S. Palmer.

“Given the amount of money that was awarded to us in the grant, we could seek to revise the project scope and only do the window replacements at Parkside,” interim superintendent Ryan Kish told the board Tuesday night.

Directors gave a consensus to accept the $100,000 in grant money, which it would then have three years to spend. If it doesn’t spend the money in three years, it would be required to return it.

“If the board was going to choose one school to do, I would recommend Parkside,” Facilities Director Joe Faenza said. “The glass is separating from the frame and the panes are starting to come down up to 5/8 of an inch at some points. They are at the end of their useful life.”

There are 139 windows at Parkside and 60 of them, according to the district, were temporarily fixed with an eye on full replacements in the near future.

“This is something we’ve been talking about for a couple years,” Board President Sherry Haas said.

Should the board move forward with a window replacement, design costs would be between $20,000 and $30,000, Faenza said.

“There would be an energy savings because they would be brand-new windows,” he added. “It would look really nice.”

Director Brandon Mazepa, however, urged the board to wait until the completion of a district feasibility study that could help determine the future use of Parkside, which currently houses kindergarten and first grade students, as well as district administration.

“We don’t even know if we will be housed in this building in 3-5 years,” Mazepa said. “It seems like we’re putting the cart before the horse. I think we have to figure out what the purpose of the building will be moving forward before we decide about this.”

The feasibility study lists replacing the Parkside windows with a priority score of 2 (1 is the most pressing need) and a cost estimate of $800,000-$1 million.