Into each life some rain must fall.
Just ask the 6th grade class at Suncrest Middle School.
Those students are housed in the annex of the school on Baldwin Street.
Or they were.
Said roof over said annex began leaking. And the trickles turned into trouble.
Campbell likened the journey to that of any homeowner delving into any fix-up project – only to discover that everything was just way more involved.
And way more costly.
The leak had gone undiscovered for a long period of time, the superintendent said.
Inspections over the summer told the tale after a crew climbed up for a preliminary assessment of what everyone thought then was going to be a quick, patchwork series of repairs.
“At that point we didn’t have a choice,” he said.
The annex roof is of truss construction, and the supports framing up the design were beginning to rot from the exposure to the elements.
“Which means you have to replace them and the insulation,” he said – which basically means rebuilding the roof structure.
Mon’s Board of Education, though, is fast-tracking the work so Suncrest Middle’s sixth-graders, who have been shuttled to the WVU Innovation Center for their lessons in the meantime, can be back at Baldwin Street by Thanksgiving.
The BOE has signed on with City Construction, a local firm that does business with the school district.
While the contact, which is expected to come in around $1.7 million, is still being finalized, workers are already perched, taking the first steps of the job, which started last week.
Campbell praised Suncrest Middle’s teachers for their adaptability.
They were informed right before the first day of school [Aug. 20] that a temporary address change was going to have to be in order.
“We didn’t give them hardly any notice because we were working so hard for the repairs,” he said.
“They’re nothing but resourceful,” he said, of the faculty members. “We told them the situation and they did what they needed to do.”
Same for the students, whose first day was Aug. 21, given the move.
“Kids are always going to be resilient and adaptable,” Campbell said, “and we appreciate WVU for working with us to help everyone set up for class.”
