Plans Underway For Jackson Middle School Roof Replacement

Jackson County Schools will begin formulating a plan to replace the leaky roof atop Jackson County Middle School.

Director of Schools Jason Hardy said the existing roof is some 20 years old and has outlived its lifespan. He said with recent severe weather, maintenance crews have had to do significant patchwork to restrict leakage. He said the time is coming for a permanent solution.

“We have a great maintenance department here and we want to make things last,” Hardy said. “That’s priority number one really, is taking care of what you’ve got, because if you’re not taking care of what you’ve got, then you probably don’t need to be looking to do anything new, especially in this climate we have these days. ”

Hardy said as the budgeting process ramps up, this project will likely begin to creep up the board’s list of priorities. He said with a project of this magnitude, plans have to begin years in advance.

“You can only patch it so many times, then you’re going to have to have probably a larger project to make it right,” Hardy said. “Anytime you do patchwork, you’re going to do the best you can.”

Hardy said if the board decides to replace the entire roof, the project will likely cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. He said he plans to pursue some external sources of funding to help mitigate that cost, but the system always keeps money set aside for capital projects like this one.

“We did a lot of projects with that ESSER funding that we had the past few years, but that’s gone now,” Hardy said. “We’re always looking for grants and other things that offset the cost from the schools, so hopefully something like that will come along.”

Hardy said you do not move often in education. He said when the system builds something, they want to build it right and build it to last. He said the next step in this process will be communicating with roofers to see what the most appropriate strategy will be. He said the district could be advised to only replace a section of the roof which would cut the cost, but the roof in its entirety may be too far gone.