State to help cover cost of replacing roofs at Berryville elementary, middle schools

The Berryville School District recently received some good news from the state regarding a pair of needed roof replacements.

The state will reimburse the district approximately $1.2 million of the $1.8 million cost to replace roofs at the elementary and middle school campuses, members of the Berryville School Board were told at their monthly meeting Monday, May 18.

“We do a master facilities list and our roof at the elementary and at the middle school had been identified as needing to be replaced,” superintendent Owen Powell said. “The master list goes to the state and then you get put on a list of whether or not you get approved for the partnership funding for it. We were approved and just found out.”

The roof replacement at the elementary school will be 34,369 square feet and will cost $1.1 million, of which $717,000 will be reimbursed to the district by the state, Powell said.

“So, our part will be $382,000,” he said.

At the middle school, 22,184 square feet of roof will be replaced at a cost of approximately $700,000, with the state reimbursing the district $462,848.

“Our part will then be $237,151,” Powell added.

The district’s portion of the costs will come out of its building fund, the superintendent said.

“So, those are two real big projects we’ve got coming up that we’ve been approved for,” he said. “It’s too late to try to do either one of these projects this summer, so they will both happen — or at least the plan is — for both of those roofs to be replaced next summer. It’s a big project.”

While they need to be replaced sooner rather than later, the roofs are satisfactory enough to wait a year on replacement, Powell said.

“It’s not a dire situation,” he said. “They’re just old roofs and they’re developing leaks and we’ve had to hire people to come in and patch them up. Over the years they’ve been patched so many times. They’re safe, but something needs to be done.

“They’ll hold up for another year, for sure.”

OTHER BOARD MEETING ITEMS

The board also approved a handful of maintenance projects for this summer, which include painting, flooring, playground mulching, carpet cleaning and replacing a parking lot, Powell said.

“We also have to do some fencing and replace some doors,” he said. “So, there’s quite a bit of work to get done over the summer.”

Other approvals included a renewal of the district’s virtual education program, which saw approximately 40 students participate this past year, Powell said.

Also OK’d was an agreement to have the district’s speech language pathologist as a full-time district employee and part of the salary schedule, he added.

Basic school supplies will again be provided to all students for the 2026-2027 school year after the board approved the expenditure, a practice schools in the county have followed for a number of years.

“We’re just continuing to try to ease the burden for parents from having to buy all the school supplies for their students,” Powell said.

WRAPPING UP THE YEAR

The school year concluded with the last day of classes for students on Tuesday, May 19, and Powell said the year sped by.

“I mean, it just flies by,” he said. “Blink your eyes, you’re at Christmas break, and then you blink again and you’re at Spring Break, and blink again and the year is over. So, it definitely flies by in a hurry.

“I feel like we’ve had a great year, a very successful year, and I know that everybody’s going to get a much-needed break, get some time off for the summer and hopefully get some rest and recharge.”

State-mandated testing was one of the final big priorities of the year for the district, and early indications show significant growth, Powell said.

“We’re getting some of our scores back and it looks like across the district, K-12, it looks like we’ve got some really good growth, real good growth,” he said. “Our achievement isn’t exactly where we want it to be, but we worked hard every day to try to get it there and we’ve got good growth scores and that’s really what we’re looking at the most.

“It’s not really where you start, it is where you finish and it looks like we’re going to finish strong and with a lot of growth.”