By By BETTY MITCHELL GRAY
Staff Writer
A Charlotte firm that has installed roofs for the N.C. State University College of Veterinary Medicine, Duke University and the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority submitted the lowest bid to install a new roof at Washington High School.
The amount of the bid — $289,000 — was a “pleasant surprise” to Robert Belcher, chairman of the Beaufort County Board of Education, who had feared that installing a new roof at the school could cost as much as $750,000.
The board is scheduled to meet June 2 with representatives of Dynateck Inc. to discuss details of the bid. The board is expected to award a contract to the company for the work at that time.
The board sought bids on three options for the new roof — a polymer paint system, a coating system that would recoat the roof according to specifications established by the board or a third option through which companies would recommend another polymer-based roof coating to be installed under a different set of specifications
No companies bid on the paint-system option.
Dynateck was one of seven firms that submitted bids for the other two options at prices that ranged from $289,000 to $794.430.
Three of the firms submitting bids were deemed to be “nonresponsive,” according to Jimmy Hite, president of Hite Associates of Greenville, an architecture and engineering firm hired to oversee bids for the project.
Hite met with the board Monday night and, earlier in the day, with Beaufort County leaders, who had expressed an interest in reviewing the bids for the roof project.
Dynateck’s bid calls for the company to install a rubber-like polymer material manufactured by RPM International, Inc., of Medina, Ohio, whose products include industrial coatings, sealants and consumer products such as Rust-oleum, DAP and Zinsser primers and sealers.
Dynateck provides an installers’ two-year warranty. RPM International provides a 12-year warranty, including materials and labor, Hite said.
“This is probably as good a warranty as I have seen,” he said.
Hite told the board that county leaders had four requests for the project: They asked the school board to have a lawyer check for any liens against Dynateck; asked that Dynateck and RPM International certify that the material to be installed is compatible with the existing roof at the school; asked that the board agree to an annual inspection of the roof, as recommended by Dynateck, and asked the board to contract with a representative of Hite Associates to be on the job at all times.
In other business, the board:
• Gave tentative approval to changes in the Health and Family Life Education Policy. The changes were presented to the board for a first reading by Patrick Abele, executive director for learning services. They were made to bring the policy into compliance with the Healthy Youth Act, which requires school systems in North Carolina to make changes in their sex education curriculum, he said. Those curriculum changes are currently under discussion by a committee of school personnel and community volunteers that is scheduled to meet Tuesday, June 8.
• Unanimously approved a local Career and Technical Education Plan presented to the board by Christina Harris, high school curriculum coordinator. The plan serves as a contract between the Beaufort County Schools and the federal government and identifies student and teacher performance goals, Harris said. The school system currently offers agriculture, business, marketing, health occupations, family and consumer sciences and trades and industry education and serves about 85 percent of all high school students, according to information presented to the board by Harris. Changes in the new plan provide for more individual and career-focused instruction, she said.
• Unanimously approved a continuing budget resolution for 2010-2011.
• Unanimously approved a request from S.W. Snowden Elementary School to apply for a grant through 21st Century Learning for an after-school program at the school.
• Unanimously approved support for a grant through the Beaufort County Health Department for a walking trail to be constructed at S.W. Snowden Elementary School.
• Unanimously approved a request from Northeast Elementary School to allow that school’s Parent Teacher Organization to buy a sign to be installed in front of the school to announce school-based activities.
• Unanimously approved a request from Northside High School to plant a tree in the school’s courtyard in memory of Jonathan Kirk, a former student killed while serving in the military.
• Voted 8-0 to reappoint Mitchell St. Clair to the Beaufort County Community College Board of Trustees, the governing board for the college. Board member Cindy Winstead, a BCCC nursing instructor, was given permission to abstain from the vote.
• Unanimously approved the 2010-2011 calendar for the Early College High School.
• Unanimously approved field trip requests, one from Southside High School for students to attend a volleyball camp at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and the other from Northside High School for students to participate in a trip to New York in April.
All board members attended the meeting.