WORK MOVES FORWARD - The new addition to Sparta School is already well under way, with the outline of the building clearly visible in the foreground with the existing school building in the background. The new addition is being built to house students in the pre-kindergarten grades. In the photo below left, Superintendent Jeff Cox talks over the grading work for the new school bus garage with Larry Woodie, the contractor doing the work. On the fence is a sign announcing the new garage. School officials have stated hopes that the two buildings will be ready to use later this year.

Updates on garage, Sparta addition given

During the June meeting of the Alleghany County Board of Education, Superintendent Jeff Cox updated the members of the board on the work at the Sparta School addition and the bus garage.

The addition at Sparta School was contracted to Vannoy and Sons, a firm out of Jefferson, while the work on the bus garage is being done by local construction firm, Dillard and Sons. Randy Baker with Pinnacle Architecture in Matthews is the architect assisting the school system working with the two projects.

Speaking of the bus garage last Wednesday, Cox estimated the grading work on garage would be completed by this week. During the June 7 meeting, Cox said, "They continue to make rapid progress there. In fact, I guess it was yesterday maybe I was by and it wasn't completely leveled and I talked to Larry Woodie on the phone, I was asking about were they going to come down to ground level and he said, "We already have, it's there."

Cox pointed out that although Woodie noted he came across rock in the grading process, "I feel things are going to come in under budget on his grading, well under the $49,000," Cox said. "He was going to talk to Randy Dillard there about having them move the rock and working through that. I still feel that they're going to get where they need to be and probably by next week he would expect to be done with the grading work there."

Cox told the board members he had had conversations with Baker and Woodie about incorporating the grading work being done at the bus garage with work in the field above Woodruff Stadium.

"Randy Baker's doing some follow up for me to find out if we can build that into that plan as a change order of some sort. Say run and go and get a new plan and go through all the meetings, paperwork and so forth again...legally, that's what we're trying to work out so that we can continue while Larry Woodie is here to do the change order to keep him on the project and have him go ahead and work on the facility here. He expressed willingness to do that if we could work out the details."

Cox said in the midst of the construction taking place at Sparta, a pre-construction meeting of the subcontractors is slated to take place June 14 on the Sparta School campus.

"They still are hopeful and believe they're on track to have our kids in there and in the classrooms come August," Cox said.

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