By By BETTY MITCHELL GRAY
Staff Writer
The recent unseasonably hot weather is affecting the installation of a new roof at Washington High School, the Beaufort County Board of Education was told Wednesday night.
Most of the work on the roof replacement will be done at night because the chemical used to remove the old roof is ineffective at temperatures above 85 degrees, Beaufort County Schools Superintendent Don Phipps told the board.
Phipps’ report on the roof project was one of only a handful of items taken up by the board at a special called meeting of the board on the last day of the 2009-2010 fiscal year.
The meeting was scheduled for Wednesday, in part, so the board could approve amendments to budgets for six of the school’s funds before the midnight deadline to do so.
The board unanimously approved the budget amendments.
The board also unanimously approved the transfer of $285,565 in N.C. Education Lottery funds from school coffers to Beaufort County to reimburse the county for debt payment on school construction projects.
The low bid on the roof project was submitted by Dynatek, 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.
Its cost, $323,680, is about $67,880 less than the amount budgeted for the project in the 2010-2011 capital budget approved by the school board earlier this year.
In other business, the board:
• Approved a field trip request from cheerleaders at Chocowinity Middle School to attend a cheerleading camp in Concord.
• Heard a report from Phipps on the use of impact testing on public school athletes. Impact testing is being used by some school systems to help determine when athletes who sustain concussions are ready to return to play.
School officials are studying the possibility of implementing some type of impact testing of athletes, Phipps said.
Concussions can be devastating to young athletes who are allowed to play sports before recovering from them, board Chairman Robert Belcher said.
“I think we need to be proactive on this thing and try to keep our school children out of danger,” he said.
• Heard a report on the use of the soccer field at Eastern Elementary School from Patrick Abele, executive director for learning services.
La Amistad, the soccer league that has used the field previously, has not yet renewed its use agreement with the schools, Abele said. The agreement expired April 19. School-board members said that if the use agreement is not renewed in a timely manner, Abele should give other interested groups the chance to use the field.
Board members Barbara Boyd-Williams and F. Mac Hodges did not attend the meeting.