LUMBERTON — Faced with a waiting list, the Board of Education voted to expand the Learning Acceleration Program at a regular meeting Tuesday.

The program, which now serves 136 students, will grow to include another module building at the career center and serve an additional 35 to 40 students. The expansion will cost the system approximately $65,000.

Johnny Hunt, superintendent of the Public Schools of Robeson County, proposed the program in January and school officials credit it with helping 54 students graduate high school in June. There is another site with 12 students at South Robeson High School.

Through online courses, the program gives students the chance to take a class required for graduation that they had failed or missed. For some students, it offers the opportunity to return to school and complete their graduation requirments.

“It has saved so many children and we have recommendations and pleas from parents,” said Linda Emanuel, assistant superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction.

Hunt agreed that the program had been successful and could not accommodate all of the students who requested admission.

“That’s bad when children are dropouts or potential dropouts and want to come back to school,” Hunt said.

Danny Stedman, assistant superintendent of Operations, said there was money available in the capital outlay fund — which has a balance of $7 million — to pay for the expansion.

The board also voted to move forward with plans to build a new gym at Townsend Middle School in Maxton. The project will be sent out for bid to ascertain if it can be constructed — with a regulation 50-feet-by-80-feet court — for the budgeted $1.5 million. If the cost is higher, Hunt said the court would be dropped to a middle school-sized one, which is 42 feet by 72 feet.

At the July meeting, the board had voted to delay the project until after the details of the state’s budget were released.

The board recognized retired teacher Agnes Chavis, 83, who was awarded the National Education Association’s 2009 Retired Distinguished Service Award. Chavis taught in the system for more than 40 years.

“My mother taught me that it was better to wear out than rest out so start wearing yourself out, especially for the Public Schools of Robeson County,” she said.

The board congratulated six junior ROTC cadets from South Robeson, Purnell Swett, Lumberton, Fairmont and St. Pauls high schools who participated in a JROTC leadership camp at Fort Jackson, S.C. All six earned the status of honor cadet, given to 40 students out of the 953 attending. Two advanced to the level of Distinguished Honor Cadet, which is awarded to four students at the camp. Dylan Locklear, a student at South Robeson, took the camp’s highest honor of Superior Distinguished Cadet.

In other business:

— A plaque was given to Pembroke Middle School for its addition to the list of schools achieving Adequate Yearly Progress under the federal No Child Left Behind act. The state Department of Public Instruction added the school after re-figuring test scores.

— Applications for free tutoring have been sent to students at 21 schools. Students who qualify for free or reduced lunch and attend a school flagged for improvement are eligible for the service. The applications are due by Nov. 6.

— A requirement that a competency and computer skills test be passed before students are granted a diploma has been changed. Students who attended Robeson County schools between 1981 and 2009 and can show that they met the requirements can receive their diplomas without passing the test.

— Plans to install gates and signals at the railroad tracks that cross Linkhaw road at Lumberton High School were approved.