The Horry County school board put its stamp of approval on district efforts to win a federal Race to the Top-District grant Monday night, along with welcoming its newest member of the board.

Horry County Schools is part of the Digital Promise League of Innovative Schools Consortium, seven member school districts from across the country that have been working together on the application that will be submitted to the U.S. Department of Education, according to information supplied by the district.

Digital Promise is a bipartisan public-private partnership that was chartered by Congress to spur innovation in education. The League of Innovative Schools is an alliance of 28 school districts in 18 states.

The completed application must be submitted by Oct. 30, and the grant will be awarded after the first of the year. The board also required that they receive a progress report two years into the process and look at available funding to continue after the grant expires.

HCS Superintendent Cindy Elsberry said the district would expect to get $2.5 million, and several schools have been proposed to benefit if the grant money comes to Horry County. They are Homewood Elementary School, Pee Dee Elementary School, Whittemore Park Middle School, Green Sea Floyds Middle and High School, Loris High School, Myrtle Beach High School, Conway High School, the Academy for Technology and Academics, and the Academy for the Arts, Science and Technology.

Some of the schools are the lowest-performing in the district, Elsberry said, and the grant would help to individualize instruction and have the tools in place to personalize instruction not just in labs, but any time a teacher deems appropriate.

Monday’s board meeting began with the oath of office being given to Janet Graham, who was appointed by the board to fill the District 7 seat left vacant following the death of Paul Hudson last summer.

Graham lives in Conway and is area manager for the Myrtle Beach Area Small Business Development Center at Coastal Carolina University.

Contact VICKI GROOMS at 443-2401 or follow her at Twitter.com/TSN_VickiGrooms.