Jackson Middle School Fencing Upgrades Bidding

Jackson County Schools will take bids this week for security fence upgrades behind Jackson County Middle School.

Director of Schools Jason Hardy said the board has discussed the project in several meetings as a prime candidate for a project best suited for summertime. He said there has been a fence there for years but parts of it have been torn down over the past several years.

“We’re always looking for safety updates every year when we do annual checkups and assessments,” Hardy said. “And that’s one of the things that we identified that we need to update, and like I said, there’s one other now but we feel like we can put one up that will be a little bit safer and a little bit better.”

Hardy said the fence covers the back and side of the campus that runs into a residential area. He said with the parking lot in the front of the school, those areas of campus are not as closely monitored as the rest.

“Anytime you have a residential area, you have a lot of people,” Hardy said. “And the odds of somebody coming onto the campus, whether it’s a safety risk or not, is greater. So just a simple security fence can fix that problem real quick.”

He said the board plans to have the existing fence extended as well to cover more area. He said people would have to come around the side of the school undetected to slip past the fence, but he would rather not take the chance.