Wash. Elem. masonry project set; JMS doors still an issue; South Elem. open house soon

By Benjamin Cox on November 14, 2018 at 3:01pm

A theme of summer renovation projects in Jacksonville School District 117 lives on.

During last night’s School District 117 Board of Education meeting, the Board decided a Health Life Safety amendment was necessary for work that apparently needs to be done on the exterior of the Washington Elementary School. District 117 Superintendent Steve Ptacek explains why the Board approved the need for a Health Life Safety amendment.

“Each year, when we put out the Tax Levy in December, a portion of the Tax Levy bill goes to what is called ‘Health Life Safety expenses’. We’re only allowed to levy for our ‘Health Life Safety expenses’ if we can show need. Our district has a lot of need when it comes to our facilities, but the most obvious need was the tuck pointing and masonry work on the outside of Washington Elementary. The levy comes out to around $350,000 when it comes to health life safety needs, so we presented to the board a request to do that work under ‘health life safety expenses’ next summer. We might do more than $350,000 of work, but we had to present this and confirm that this was the Board’s plan for the district and these funds.”

Ptacek describes a nicely completed part of the South Elementary project, as well as a door issue at Jacksonville Middle School.

“The JMS doors have been an issue since the building was finished. They have had an issue fulling closing. We have had the company out there to work on them multiple times, and we’re sure that the majority of the problems have been fixed, however we will keep an eye on them while they are still under warranty to make sure they are still closing properly. We got the marquee in at South, and the exterior work is presently being finished.”

Ptacek says the community will soon get a chance to openly tour South Elementary.

“We did not talk about this at the Board meeting, but I will state that the last of the issues that stood in the way of us doing an open house at South School has been corrected this week. We should be getting the floors waxed and completed, and a scheduled open house event for South Elementary will be announced shortly.”

There has been no official date set for any open house at South Elementary School.