By Marcia Barnes
Staff Writer
Behind the brick and mortar of Clay County Schools, Director of Maintenance Steven Lyvers and a team of maintenance employees took on an over-sized work load during the summer to make repairs to Hayesville’s schools. At the recent Board of Education meeting on Monday, Aug. 26 Lyvers reported on the condition of the physical plant and repairs, adjustments and additions which were necessary before the first day of school. Lyvers said that he couldn’t express how proud he was of the team.
“These guys worked very hard. They are very accountable for everything that they do. This is my fifth year, this month, and this is probably the hardest summer I’ve seen,” Lyvers said.
A summary of work completed over the summer included:
• Central Building - office painting, some air conditioning replacement on the roof — because the units are old, there were issues with parts.
• New signage for new traffic patterns; speed bumps removed.
• Waxed floors due to being short-handed on custodial help.
• Middle school added a sliding window in a finished block wall.
• Moved the front office completely around, painted and touched-up areas in the principal’s office.
• Four classrooms received floor repair.
• Floor refinish in the middle school gym and the high school.
• New carpet in the media center, band room and lecture hall — necessary to remove all the seats in that area.
• Installation of mini-splits with wiring and panel work done in-house
• Painted new black lines on gym floor.
• Football field repair to four relays, power supply and breakers due to a lightning strike.
• Replaced a glass door at the high school.
• Removed some old weight equipment; repaired some lockers; repaired sheet rock.
• Repaired chillers at the high school gym.
• Installing a bottle-refilling station.
• Elementary school media center window replaced to bring natural light into the area; painted areas.
• Installed cub areas in some classrooms with three more sets to be completed.
• Re-gravel and re-chip of the back playground.
• Air conditioning problems over all the campus, repaired prior to first school day.
• Primary school received wallboard installation in the main hall.
• Bathroom dispenser replacement (primary school mainly) wall patch/touch up.
• Added blue chips and mulch in the Pre-K playground.
• Added 29 yellow posts and chains on one side of the drop-off area.
• Cafeteria needed routine maintenance and a mini-split — everything new in the cafeteria can be removed and re-purposed before demolition.
• Auditorium seats and blinds removed.
• Added new gravel to parking lot which will be striped for parking.
• Repair to drainage; re-worked drainage lines at primary school.
• Removed and replaced picnic tables.
Lyvers said that they have been working a lot with their general contractor and that a lot is going on under the ground that has been there since the 1930s.
“We have found piping that goes nowhere, electrical that goes nowhere, today we found a power line that comes out of the cafeteria and stops. I think it went to the old greenhouse that was out there when we were little kids.”
The repairs aren’t finished yet, Lyvers said that there was a lot thrown at the maintenance department during the summer and in a couple of weeks the work list will be completed with all the additions and repairs done in-house.