BUTLER TWP — The Butler School Board adopted a $230,000 plan on Tuesday to reform the school district’s reading program, with an emphasis on Center Avenue Elementary School.

In the 2012-13 school year, funding will pay for consultants to improve the district’s reading scores; reading specialist interns for Broad Street and Emily Brittain schools; a reading specialist for Center Avenue; a new reading program for the fifth grade at Center Avenue; a classroom teacher to handle principal duties at Oakland Elementary School and a long-term substitute for that same Oakland classroom.

Earlier this month, Center Avenue teachers asked that Barbara Frantz, principal, return to the school full-time. She will do so this year, with principal duties at Oakland Elementary School handled by a classroom teacher and a substitute teacher hired for the classroom, said Carolyn Cornish, assistant superintendent.

Center Avenue has been the focus of the district’s efforts since it appeared on a list of Pennsylvania’s lowest-performing schools, scoring in the bottom 15 percent on 2010-11 state tests.

As a result, Center Avenue students are eligible to apply for scholarships to attend private or public schools that are approved to accept them. In Butler County, only private religious schools have applied for those students.