The Oct. 12 meeting of the East Penn School Board was the kick-off to a comprehensive policy review scheduled to span the next several months.

Starting with a first reading of 11 district policies, the board will review the entire district policy manual with services from the Pennsylvania School Boards Association and the district’s legal council.

Superintendent Dr. Michael Schilder explained PSBA is sending drafts of revisions by section. All of the information will be collated into the first draft presented to the board for a first reading.

In other business, the board received a presentation from the district’s technology education department on the implementation of engineering courses at the high school level.

Steven Braglio and Eric Smith, two technology education teachers, received intensive training in engineering courses through a non-profit program called Project Lead the Way in affiliation with Bucknell University.

The program builds on STEM (science-technology-engineering-math) principles in public education to bring a more specialized kind of instruction to students who already show proficiency in math and science.

The district has implemented STEM classes on the elementary and middle school levels, but these more advanced courses in engineering would be a new, more rigorous development.

“East Penn is really going to benefit from this,” Smith told the board. It’s typical of students to ask why a certain mathematical principle is necessary for them to learn, but with the new courses in engineering, students will realize a practical application of these principles.

“STEM meshes math and science but sees it through its progression to tech ed,” Smith said.

The first course proposed by the presentation is Introduction to Engineering Design, which teaches students to identify and solve problems using the engineering method. In the second course, Principles of Engineering, students learn real applications of theory in practical use. The program will make use of advanced technology like 3D printers and complex industrial software.

Laura Witman, supervisor of secondary curriculum and technology, explained the program, if approved, would be implemented for the 2016-2017 school year starting with the foundation courses and more specialized courses the following year. At present, only Smith and Braglio are trained in the foundation courses.

Start-up costs for the program run up to over $32,000 in computer lab and technology costs and $20,000 in equipment for the course, which includes a Vex robotics kit. Witman explained these are one-time start-up costs. Additional annual costs would run about $3,000 which would be the same regardless of the number of courses.

The board questioned how much student interest there is and how much could be sustained by the program. Witman said these courses running at other high schools are filling up, proving a real interest among the student body in these practical applications of existing STEM courses and with two trained teachers and a fully equipped computer lab, the district could run eight or nine classes based on the structure of the school day.

Andrew Moxey, department chair, also explained more robust computers would be necessary to run the advanced software needed for the program, as part of the start-up costs.

Witman said the program has been running through Project Lead the Way for at least 15 years with a great success rate and published outcomes on the project’s website. It is aligned with core concepts already being taught at the high school and would coincide with future plans for a STEM physics course to be integrated as well.

Board President Alan Earnshaw said he thought the program was wonderful and the exposure would be a phenomenal way to help students find their way to a career before even leaving high school.

“This is an example of us putting STEM in place and making it happen quickly,” Schilder said. “We’re all very excited about it.”