Board hears WPHS engineering report
Facilities use agreement gets update
The Wills Point ISD Board of Trustees met for more than two hours on Monday night, tackling an agenda that included a report on a structural condition assessment conducted at the high school campus from Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. as well as a lengthy discussion centering on the district’s facilities use policy.
After a brief period of student and staff recognition to open the meeting, the board was given an extensive report by Beth L. Brueggen, a senior associate with WJE regarding the high school.
The report was conducted at the request of the district to review areas that have shown cracking and other areas of concern in the cafetorium, the library and the second floor classrooms above the library.
Brueggen offered up a history of the high school campus, noting that it was constructed in 1997. Sometime before 2002, movement and distress could be seen around several areas of the campus. Exterior grading improvements to help with drainage were undertaken in 2003, and interior test pits were dug at some point after. A structural assessment was conducted in 2015, and another by WJE that was just concluded.
WJE’s report included multiple options for the district to address the issues, including one that would call for periodic limited cosmetic repairs costing between $50,000-$100,000, one plan that would call for void space creation under the grade beams that would cost an estimated $325,000 and one plan that would call for new piers to be installed throughout the library and cafetorium with an estimated price tag of $1 million.
