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Emergency repairs will be made at three Wake County elementary schools that have been deemed unsafe for students due to settling and wall cracking issues on the campus.
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In a special meeting on Monday, the Wake County school board authorized Superintendent Robert Taylor to enter emergency construction contracts at Creech Road Elementary in Garner, Davis Drive Elementary in Cary and Durant Road Elementary in Raleigh.
Administrators are drawing up contingency plans in case the buildings aren’t ready for the start of the new school year, which is July 30 at Durant Road. and Aug. 24 at the other two schools.
Administrators didn’t have a price tag for the repair work, saying estimates of the scope of the work are still being drawn up. But Wake will pay construction workers to be on the job 24/7, which will increase the price tag.
All three schools date back to the 1990s and use the same prototype design.
In a letter Friday to parents and staff, Creech Road Principal Ralph Chew said a recent engineering review by structural engineers identified a concern involving the construction of certain walls.
“Specifically, the build of certain walls and connections between walls and other parts of our building were not aligned with what was called for in approved construction plans,” Chew wrote.
Davis Drive and Durant Road’s principals also sent letters to staff and families on Friday.
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“Our school is one [sic] the schools constructed using the same building plans,” said the Davis Drive and Durant Road letters. “At this time, it appears some of the same concerns are present in our building structure, but we do not yet know the extent of these issues”
Structural engineers have been at all three campuses to assess conditions. This caused Creech Road and Davis Drive to relocate Read To Achieve camps to other schools and Durant Road to move its camp to its modular units.
Superintendent Robert Taylor said the problem of settling and cracks at Creech Road was first noticed in 2024. But he said engineers determined this spring the cracks had significantly advanced since then.
Wake checked other schools that used the same design as Creech Road. David Burnett, assistant superintendent for facilities, design and construction, said engineers determined Creech Road, Davis Drive and Durant Road are not safe to be occupied by students until repairs are made.
Creech Road is expected to require the most work of the three schools. Taylor said they’re expecting a six-week time frame.
While the repairs aren’t as expected to take as long at Durant, the time frame is much shorter there due to the year-round school beginning classes in two weeks.
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