Workers race to finish renovations at schools

By Carole Brand

Published: August 4, 2008

Capital project plans for some county schools are running behind as the hours count down before school officially begins Wednesday morning.
At New Brockton Elementary School last week, more contractors were placed on the job site as new carpet was being installed, new furniture and desks put together and a new drop off/pick up area was only partly finished.

“We’re having new carpets put in this week and it is going to be very close if they get finished in time,” Principal Dale Kelley said. “We’ve got workers putting together new desks, bookcases and furniture and we’ve been working on this for a week. We’ll have our part done if the contractors can finish up,” he said.

A new driveway project will separate vehicles and buses for drop off and pickup points.

“This is to create safety and separate the driveway into outgoing and incoming traffic,” Kelley said. “The bus drop is to the east side of the school where the car drop-off is to the west side.”

With new renovations to the school, some classrooms will also change.

Kelley said the fifth and sixth-grade classes will be located where the third-grade classrooms were last year.

“We’re placing the third grade students in the larger building and moving the upper grades to the other building,” he said. “I believe this will work out better for everyone.”

Not only New Brockton Elementary School is receiving new carpet, but all the schools in the system.
Superintendent Linda Ingram said gym air conditioning systems, renovations in some of the schools and paving projects were to be hopefully finished before the start of school.

“The contractors ran into some days with rain and other things have delayed all of the projects from being completed,” she said. “Even though the workers are running late with the carpet, the new carpet actually just arrived about two weeks ago, so everything is on a fast-pace schedule to be done, but we realize a lot of things won’t be completed before the first bell rings for school on Wednesday.”