Bathroom renovations at Pickett County High School are finally underway after several months of delays. .
The project initially set to begin this summer before the school year started. Pickett County Director of Schools Melissa Robbins said the contractor faced issues.
“They had, I think, some issues with making sure they had the contractor,” Robbins said. “We’re farther out in the state, and so I think they had some issues with that, but they got those rectified and someone hired to finish up that project.”
Robbins said bathrooms in the halls and gym have been gutted, and the contractor is currently working to replace the sewer line. Robbins said the bathrooms will impact students during the school day.
“At this point in time, we already have a plan in place for the restrooms in the gym area,” Robbins said. “The students can go to the locker rooms downstairs to use restrooms, or they can go to the middle school hallway. So all of the restrooms are not shut down. It’s just someone is in the gym at this point, and then we have the same plan for the middle hallway and the upper hallway.”
Robbins said the contractor is hopeful to have the gym bathrooms completed by November, before basketball season ramps up.
“They had told us that it would be somewhere between $700,000 and $1 million, that’s what they would keep it at,” Robbins said. “And it did end up being nine hundred and something thousand, but we did have money set aside for that, and we know, as things go, prices do go up.”
Robbins said the school board has not looked ahead at what could be the next phase of the high school’s major renovation project.
