Roofing project to start for Ila

The county board of education (BOE) approved a $172,584 bid Jan. 12 to begin the first phase of replacing the Ila Elementary School roof.

“If you can afford it, now’s a good time to get construction done,” superintendent Mitch McGhee said last week.
Reached by phone this week, McGhee said workers will complete phase I with in a couple of months.

“The phase I, we really had no choice,” McGhee said. “We’ve got to get it done now.”

The next phase could be done all at once or broken into multiple phases. Budget constraints could affect the timetable of the other phases, however.

“We’d love to get the rest of it done next year,” McGhee said. “We just don’t know if we’re going to have the money.”

The non-phase I areas of the roof can be patched for now, McGhee said.

School leaders bid out the project in November after it was determined that the Ila roof was “barely hanging on.”

“That’s where we had the majority of our leaking issues during the rainy season,” assistant superintendent Bonnie Knight said at last week’s BOE meeting.

The first phase includes the worst quarter area of the roof and also the section of the roof that covers the kitchen area. The project also includes some wall panels.