Construction at US Jones Elementary will continue into school year

Students returning to US Jones Elementary on the first day of school Aug. 7 will notice construction underway as renovations continue into the school year.

Demopolis City Schools Superintendent Adam Pugh told the school board on Monday that the $1 million renovations to the 100-year-old portion of US Jones won’t be completed before school starts, which was the original goal.

“The needs were more extensive than we thought,” Pugh said after the meeting, pointing to issues with rotting wood in the walls that was worse than expected.

Pugh said the classes impacted by the lingering repairs will be specialty classes such as music and gifted and plans are in place for those classes to meet in divided spaces of the library and the STEM room until construction is completed. He estimated that would be September.

“It will be an inconvenience, but not a bad one,” he said.

The school district’s architect Jordan Morris with Ward Scott Morris Architects gave a report to the board in February that listed renovations including redoing the floors, sheetrock, lighting and replacing windows as well as insulation. Design also reroutes runoff from the roof into drains that are further away from campus.

In other business, the school district says their summer camps were successful with all third graders who ended the school year at risk of being held back to repeat third grade if they didn’t reach state required reading metrics “achieving a pathway to promotion.” 

Athletic Director Mark Heaton said they are working toward a deal to have a video broadcast alongside the radio broadcast of football games available in the fall. This includes home and away games.