School district reports progress on hurricane repairs

By MEGHAN BRADBURY news@breezenewspapers com

The School District of Lee County has completed 81 percent of its hurricane-related repair work orders

On May 9, Superintendent Dr. Christopher Bernier told the Lee County School Board that major roof repairs are continuing throughout the district and they are working very hard to get ahead of the rainy season to have permanent roofs in place

“Roofing repairs have been completed on two of our highly impacted schools, both Success Academy and North Fort Myers High School,” he said “Bids were executed for two additional school roof

Dr. Christopher Bernier

r e p a i r s , D i p l o m a t M i d d l e a n d S k y l i n e School The expectation with that being about a $4 million cost Work is expected to begin following board approval at (the) May 23 (school board meeting) ”

The district is also looking at mitigation opportunities, including improving some of its existing roof systems

“We could go back and just put up shingles on particular roofs. We noticed during the hurricane and the aftermath that utilizing metal roofing, standing seam roofing is much better and will help us with our insurance cost,” Bernier said

The district is working to ensure caseby-case utilization of the standard seam roofs to prevent some damage if and when another hurricane comes ashore

The installation of flooring, ceiling tiles and new cabinetry continues throughout the district The hope is that before the next school year begins, the major projects will be completed

In addition, Bernier said he is happy to report that the district is working very closely with the Lee County Emergency Operations Center and Lee County commissioners.

“We have finally received payment of approximately o v e r $ 1 2 m i l l i o n f o r o u r s h e l t e r i n g c o s t d u r i n g (Hurricane) Ian I am very proud of our partnership with our community and our county leaders for providing us that opportunity to pay our cost for opening and housing our community during the crisis,” he said