Putnam Approves Contract For Jere Whitson Floor

The gym floor at Jere Whitson Elementary School will soon be refinished and repainted.

Putnam County Deputy Director of Schools Tim Martin said the project is just touching up the floor and not fully replacing it. Martin said the project came about as the school board tries to refinish a gym floor across the system annually.

“Our goal is that every ten years we will completely refinish the floor,” Martin said. “So that means sanding it all the way down to the wood, sanding all the lines off of it, sanding off the logo if it has one and we completely redo everything.”

Martin said the school board does have a long-range plan with every school listed to receive a refinish of their gym floor. The contract price, some $19,000. Martin said even though elementary school gym floors are not a top priority the board still tries to do those kind of projects.

“I will say that because we don’t have basketball teams at our elementary schools they are not our top priority but we do still try to get to those as often as we can. Sometimes we have to interrupt that schedule when we’ve had a water leak or something happens and we have to rearrange our time frame a little bit.”

Martin said he hopes to have the project wrapped up shortly after the new year. Martin said the contractor is from Birmingham, AL as there are not many contractors in the area that do this kind of work.

“We are planning to get it done as soon as possible but we do not have a time from the contractor right now,” Martin said. “I don’t have the timeline on that currently.”

Martin said he hopes the school will be able to work around the project as the project begins. Martin said he believes the floor will brighten up the gym since completed.