With school out, Roanoke County Public Schools launch forward with construction projects

ROANOKE COUNTY (WSLS10) - School's out for the summer and construction projects are picking up speed in Roanoke County. Tuesday, the construction committee met to discuss several projects.

District leaders told us Cave Spring High School was built in 1968. Now, it's time for an upgrade. The construction committee is in the preliminary planning phase and is not yet sure of what the renovations will entail.

In February, the district set aside $1.5 million dollars for architectural and engineering services. Right now, the district is in negotiations and hopes to announce an architectural engineer soon to get started on addressing the needs of the school.

Committee members also discussed and approved nearly $20,000 to test the soil at Glenvar High School in order to pave bus and student parking lots. The money was allocated from the district's contingency budget. The original estimates to pave were lower than the actual price of construction.

And what became a heated debate at times is how to go about adding air conditioning in the middle school gyms.

While the elementary and high schools have AC, six middle school gyms at Northside, Hidden Valley, Glenvar, and William Byrd don't.

"That was a decision made about four years ago," said Roanoke County Public School's Construction Supervisor Chris Lowe. "It was probably because back at that time a lot of the elementary schools had the big recreation programs on the weekends and evening, and the high schools had the bigger crowds and things of that nature during ball seasons."

Renovations would cost nearly $1 million dollars -- money the district doesn't have yet.

Committee members questioned if it's possible to stagger the AC renovations for funding purposes. This will be further discusses in the next construction committee meeting in July.