ADAMS TWP — About 15 property owners told the Mars School Board Tuesday night that it should lease district property to a shale gas drilling company.

The board in the spring voted against a $1.5 million lease offer from Rex Energy for horizontal drilling under district property.

While many parents and several teachers who worried about the dangers of a gas deal were thrilled with the board’s vote, other residents said the board should have taken advantage of the extra revenue that the lease could have provided.

District solicitor Tom King on the night of the vote said that a main reason for the board’s rejection of the lease was that title searches on the district’s land had not been completed.

King said land donated to the district could potentially be reclaimed if the oil or mineral rights were leased.

At Tuesday night’s meeting, members of the landowners group said the board should reconsider leasing the school’s land.

Adams resident John Watson told the board that the East Allegheny School Board in Allegheny County on Monday night voted to approve a lease with EQT Production Co. He said a well could potentially be placed 500 feet from the high school/middle school in that district.

A group of Mars School District parents are protesting five wells on the Bob and Kim Geyer farm on Denny Road in Middlesex Township that would be a half-mile from the nearest school building.

The parents attempted, but failed, to have a two-mile nonindustrial overlay placed around the Mars schools that would preclude unconventional gas drilling.

All five district schools are within one mile of the Geyer drill sites.

“It would be a shame to miss this opportunity,” said Watson, who has three children attending school in the district.

Janice Kennedy of Middlesex Township asked the board to vote to pursue another lease with a shale gas driller, and offered to find deals from drillers for the district.

Interim Superintendent William Pettigrew told Kennedy that such a vote would be ill-advised because there are many pieces of information that the board does not yet have.

“We do not know exactly where we stand and what we can and can’t do regarding all the energy issues,” Pettigrew said.

Adams resident Clayton Woodward said expenses in the growing district are only going to increase, and a shale gas revenue stream could alleviate tax increases.

“This is an opportunity for our township to have a financial benefit that’s going to reduce the taxes for all of us who live here,” Woodward said.