By Matthew Burgoyne
Staff Writer
   
    The effects of the storm system that roared through Morgan County a few weeks ago is having an unfortunate lasting impact on the school system.
    “The hail storm is what did us in,” said Bob Monk, Director of Operations for the Morgan County School System.
    The Morgan County School System has been making many improvements on the schools over the past few months. Fixing the roofs of each school was not in the short term plan until recently.
    A comprehensive roof replacement plan was set to be completed by August 2009, but the date of completion had to be pushed up to account for the recent damages caused by the storm system.
    Each school has different roof replacements that have to be made. The auditorium at the high school will be receiving a new roof with a cost of approximately $46,900. The Kindergarten Hall at the primary school will be replaced costing around $114,900. Also, the lower media center and the science wing of the middle school will also get new roofing with a cost of about $156,900.00. The total estimated cost for the school system is $316, 700.
    The costs for the roof repairs is paid for by a one percent sales tax that was previously approved by the school board. The Educational Local Option Sales Tax (ELOST) pays for the roofing repair costs.
    The roofs were not scheduled with this year’s projects.
    The new gymnasium at the high school is on schedule and set to be completed by August 5, 2008. The budget for the new gym is $5.2 million.
    The school system was also in the process of placing SMART boards in every classroom. Each SMART board casts around $1,200. With 220 classrooms, the cost for this project, only including the cost of the SMART board itself, is $264,000.
    The Morgan County School System saw that roofing repairs needed to happen immediately and quickly got the project going months before its original start date. Work on the roofs at Morgan County Middle School are set to begin on April 21, 2008.