Update–see editor’s note below
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — It’s been nearly six years since flood waters destroyed six schools in West Virginia. The State Board of Education got an update on their replacements Wednesday and the report indicated progress was shockingly slow.
Of the six schools which need to be replaced, only two are actually under construction and one of those has had work temporarily halted.
“It seems like an eternity ago we went to the ground breaking at a beautiful site up on the hill. There was nothing there. Today, there’s still nothing there and Richwood people are sending me notes asking when we’re going to do something,” said state Board of Education President Miller Hall.
The board received an update from Micah Whitlow the facilities director for the state Department of Education.
The rebuilding of Herbert Hoover High School is well underway and the furthest along, according to Whitlow. The site preparation work is 98% complete and the school construction is about 40%complete. Whitlow said the project is largely under roof and work is ongoing. Hoover is expected to open in the late spring 2023.
Work on a new Clendenin Elementary School is also underway, but that work was halted with the discovery of pyritic soil. The soil condition could potentially cause the foundation to be unstable and may require removal and replacement of the soil on site. Developers are awaiting an engineering report and once a solution is identified, construction is expected to be complete in about a year.
Whitlow said the plans are in place for the new Richwood middle and high Schools. They’ll be constructed on the grounds of the current Cherry River Elementary School and the facilities will all be linked together. Pre-bidding was set for Wednesday and bid openings in March. Whitlow said plans called for the construction to get started later this year. The project will be done in phases since Cherry River is occupied. Full completion is set for 2023.
Also in Nicholas County, a new Summersville Middle School, Nicholas County High School, and the Nicholas County Technical Center are on the drawing board. Bid openings are planned for this June with construction stating this coming July. Withrow projected the schools would be complete and occupied by 2024.
“It’s been a difficult process. Typically when a school is built there is years of planning and when funding happens you’re ready to roll with designers. This situation had to start overnight. Their initial problem was just finding a place to put kids now,” Whitlow told the board.
He added there have been challenges at finding suitable land to build a school and dealing with the funding which is largely coming from FEMA.
“There’s a lot of extra steps in a FEMA funded project. It’s not like an SBA or locally funded project. Then if anything goes wrong, FEMA is very interested in the resolution of that and will hold up the project until it’s worked out. They’ve all had their share of challenges,” he added.
Whitlow explained Covid has added yet another layer of difficulty. The virus has been blamed for supply difficulties, delays in the review and approval process, and has substantially driven up the cost for each project.
Whitlow’s realities for obstacles for construction don’t appease parents whose children have been in portable trailers for nearly six years and are looking at a couple more, especially in Nicholas County.
“They’re mistreating people and that’s not right,” said Hall. “We’re going to have some answers.”
Hall called for state school Superintendent Clayton Burch to pull together everybody who has any tie to the six school projects for the board’s March meeting.
“The bottom line is these kids. Some of them aren’t going to be done until 2023 or 2024, that’s a long time. Since I got on the board we’ve been working on the same project and right now, they’re all stopped.” Hall said.
Editor’s note– MetroNews would like to provide more information on the Nicholas County projects. We erred when our original story indicated the projects “weren’t yet off the ground.” The site preparation has been completed for the parking lot area at the Cherry River site along with an area where the equipment for construction will be parked. A pre-bid event was held Wednesday and 20 construction contractors attended. The bid opening remains set for March 2.
At the Glade Creek site, the building pad is currently under construction with major earth work set to be completed by May. Construction bids will be taken in June. The Nicholas County Board of Education website provides a link to cameras to view the construction. View construction here.