CHERRY TWP — The Moniteau School Board Monday night learned that its contribution to the Butler County Vocational-Technical School budget will drop by 10 percent.

That amounts to a drop of about $27,000 from its $260,000 contribution this school year.

The district will be paying about $233,000 next school year.

The school board as a whole did not vote on the vo-tech budget. However, members of the school board cast individual written votes. The votes will be tallied later, along with board members from other participating school districts.

The school board also approved course names, course descriptions and new courses following this year’s curriculum review.

Each course in the curriculum is evaluated at least once every three to five years. A portion of the curriculum is considered each year.

“Many courses were restructured to accommodate 21st century needs and the needs of today’s students,” said Trixie Heck, chairman of the school board’s curriculum committee.

Heck said significant changes came in business communications and information technology and in industrial arts.

The following new courses were approved: Business 2: Management and Work; Engineering and Design; Systems Engineering; Advanced Systems Engineering 1, 2 and 3; AP Physics 1; AP Comparative Government/Economics; Ceramics 2; Art History; and Supervised Agricultural Experience 1, 2, 3 and 4 as independent study.

High school principal Lance Fox said curriculum guides for Moniteau’s 2016-17 school year will be available on the school website in about one week.

According to Heck, the current faculty already is qualified to teach the new courses. New faculty will not be required for these courses.

“We were modernizing and updating the curriculum and making it current. It all is driven by the state curriculum standards,” said curriculum committee member Linda Dillaman.

“It’s about a yearlong process,” Dillaman said. “The teachers have worked so hard. I know what it is to come up with this stuff.” Before retirement, Dillaman taught in the Slippery Rock School District for 35 years.

The school board also:

Learned that Dassa McKinney Elementary School will receive a $10,000 Special Education Performance Grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Bureau of Special Education. The grant will help identify students with behavioral patterns that need intervention and connect those students with appropriate community resources.