Superintendent Dr. Joseph Roy highlighted some of the districts achievements and new opportunities for students this coming school year during a recent Bethlehem Area School District School Board meeting at East Hills MS.

"We are really hitting the ground running," Roy said.

As science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education continues to be a hot topic in education across the country, the district will debut its own STEM program, Project Lead the Way, for high school students. The Precision Machining Lab at the Bethlehem Area Vocational Technical school also provides STEM education and offers state-of-the-art CNC andCAD equipment to prepare 50 students a year for high demand manufacturing careers.

"There is a need for STEM graduates, our district is taking the lead in response to these needs," Roy said.

On the middle school level, BASD is offering a program called Envision Mathematics to help fourth and fifth graders strengthen their fundamental math skills. This is accomplished by using rigorous mathematical problems to promote creativity and problem-solving skills.

Teaming has also been brought back at the sixth, seventh and eighth grade levels at four of the district's middle schools.

In addition to the academic achievements the BASD has also worked to provide high school students with increased career and college opportunities. Students can take advantage of the School to work program, a software called Naviance , a college and career readiness online tool that connects academic achievement with post high school plans, and explore college and career pathways designed to help students to identify areas of interest and pick the courses they should take.

The district also continues to strengthen and expand its community partnerships to expand opportunities for their students and to aid the community.

During the summer months, BASD has been hard at work updating its technology center. These changes will create an IT call center for customer service and during the 2014-2015 school year will see significant upgrades to the district's wireless infrastructure. The districts email system has already been switched over to a Gmail supported system.

Security camera's have been installed at the high schools and a card system has been installed at the doors of the schools to better monitor who enters and exits the buildings. Five school resource officers have also been added. Each middle school will receive an officer and a second officer will be added to Liberty HS. Freedom HS and the Vo-Tech have their resource officers provided by Bethlehem Township.

In other news Brian Leinhauser, a lawyer for the Lehigh Valley Duel Language Charter School, asked school board members during open comment to consider the charter school's application for a second location before the school year starts so its middle school students can attend the second location. This comes after the courts ruled the charter can operate a second location.

Roy also pulled an agenda item on a service agreement with the Bethlehem Area Foundation for communication services to be addressed at a later date due to the foundation needing more time than originally thought to hire an executive director. Once a director is hired the agreement will proceed.