CRESSON — The Penn Cambria School Board voted Tuesday to enter into an agreement with Richard Johnston to provide professional appraisal services for the district’s middle and intermediate schools at a cost not to exceed $3,000 for each building.

Initiating the appraisal process is an effort to get those buildings on the market as soon as possible, Superintendent Jamie Hartline said during last week’s committee of the whole meeting, noting district officials don’t want to run the risk of owning the buildings past the time of when students will no longer occupy them.

Currently, the intermediate school in Lilly houses students in the second and third grades, while the middle school in Gallitzin is home to the district’s fourth, fifth and sixth graders.

Both buildings are expected to close at the end of the 2026-27 school year, Hartline said, noting the district’s consolidation plan calls for all students to be placed at the high school campus by the 2027-28 school year.

By that time, the Penn Cambria Education Center — a two-story addition to the high school building with a separate and secure entrance — will be ready for occupancy, Hartline said. The addition will house students in grades two through six.

Once the middle and intermediate school buildings are on the market to be sold, either privately or through a realtor, the district will be able to initiate the buying process, which will go through a court system and be approved by a judge, Hartline said.

“We’re going through the proper procedure, but essentially, we could do that,” Hartline said of selling the schools once the appraisal process is complete and a suitable purchaser for each building is found.

The district has not received a timeline from Johnston regarding how long the appraisal process will take to complete, Hartline said, adding he hopes the district will be able to put both buildings on the market sooner rather than later.

By eventually closing the middle and intermediate schools, the district will reduce its overhead expenses that are associated with maintaining them, Hartline said.

“Once we no longer have students in those buildings, the district doesn’t want to be paying for them,” he said. “The sooner we can find a suitable purchaser for those buildings, that is better for the district and better for the communities.”

Hartline noted Penn Cambria has a verbal agreement with Gallitzin Borough to subdivide a small portion of land to the borough when the middle school is sold.

“The district owns a small portion of land that actually goes through their little league field. So we want to make sure that Gallitzin Borough and their youth program is taken care of so that they can continue to play little league baseball games at the field,” Hartline said.

In other business, the board voted to establish its own Practical Assessment Exploration System lab at the high school for next school year. The lab is a simulated work environment designed to assess and train students for career readiness and life skills.

Penn Cambria will purchase supplies and software from PAES Productions LLC for $50,825 — about the same amount of money officials said they currently pay the Admiral Peary Area Vocational-

Technical School to send a handful of students for use of its PAES lab.

By having an in-district lab, Penn Cambria will save money over time and be able to expand the program’s offerings to more students at earlier grade levels, special education Director Carrie Conrad told the board last week.

“It isn’t just the three or four kids that we send there who would be able to utilize this. We would be able to utilize the program from seventh grade to 12th grade,” Conrad said at the time, noting the lab has five main components for business and marketing, computer and technology, instructional and industrial, processing and consumer service.

There is already an existing space in the high school that’s furnished with a sink and “all of the necessary things they would need” to house the lab, Conrad said, adding the district has enough special education teachers to staff it.

Mirror Staff Writer Matt Churella is at 814-946-7520.