Board approves Inman Elementary renovations

The Red Oak School Board has advanced plans for renovations to the Inman Elementary building.
The district held a forum on Sept. 7 to discuss the proposed plans. Public comment was light and there was no pushback towards the district’s proposal.
School officials say the district has been saving funding dedicated to facilities: the Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (PPEL) and the Secure and Advanced Vision for Education (SAVE) fund. PPEL, which currently holds about $3.48 million, is earmarked for safety upgrades, repairs, remodeling, and other facility improvements. SAVE, which has a balance of roughly $3.85 million, is generated from a statewide one-cent sales tax and is restricted by law to school infrastructure projects. The district has invested its reserves to maximize interest earnings, generating an additional $327,387 over the past two years.
At the regular school board meeting Sept. 17, the agenda included discussion and approval of the construction documents for the Inman renovation project, including an HVAC bid alternate. Chandler Green with Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture and Luke Burwell from Boyd Jones Construction were on hand to answer questions and discuss the schematics and construction documents. Green outlined the project as it stands.
“Similar to all of the presentations that we’ve had previously to the board, we are looking at the addition and renovation to the north part of Inman Elementary with the additional north commons to expand the dining room and then the expanded admin area to get you guys that safe and secure entry vestibule along with adding some needed admin space to support growing needs. This allows a little bit of additional storage space for the school that we heard was in need also. We’ve just been finalizing the details on our end and getting those last coordination items together,” Green explained.
As the project stands right now, the budget is unchanged, and the proposed cost for the planned renovations is around $3.2 million to $3.3 million.
As for the HVAC upgrades, Board Member Scott Bruce said they are looking at maintaining one unit while making a replacement.
“We really feel comfortable we can get some more years out of the one unit. We feel that if we fix it and get it up to par, we’re really going to be good for a while now,” Bruce said.
Board Member Bryce Johnson, who has also been involved with the discussions, said that the modified plan keeps one existing unit in the interim, but allows for the installation of a new unit that would last the district for at least another 20 years. Questions were raised on what the district would do if bids for the unit surpassed what was expected. Lorenz said it was up to the board.
“As a bid alternate, it would have to be approved independently. If the bid is too high, then we would go back to the original quote with that supplemental rooftop unit to kind of take care of that additional square footage, and then we rely upon the existing HVAC,” stated Lorenz.
With the approval of the approval of the construction documents, Burwell described the next steps of the project for the district.
“We’re looking at Sept. 26 for front ends sent over to Chandler’s team. Bid advice would go out Oct. 6. I would finalize bid packages for scoping purposes on Oct. 10. The public hearing we’re planning on having at the Oct 15 board meeting, and then bids would be due Oct. 29. After bids are approved or after bids are in on Oct. 29, there would need to be a separate meeting or the board would have to wait until the Nov. 19 meeting to review those bids as a board,” explained Burwell.
Construction would begin in early March 2026. Work is expected to be completed by August, in time for the new school year. Construction will create some temporary disruptions, traffic flow around the building will be affected, and school personnel will need to adjust office operations, lunch schedules, and limit movement within certain areas of the building. The district would work closely with architects and contractors to develop a plan that minimizes these impacts and keeps school operations running as smoothly as possible.
The question was asked if there was an advantage to using money from both the SAVE and PPEL funds, or one versus the other. Lorenz said he preferred using one primary source.
“We have enough in both the SAVE and PPEL funds. I think we would probably use as much SAVE funding as possible in order to preserve our PPEL funds. There’s a bit more flexibility. We can buy things like buses and such. We haven’t gotten that far into the direct funding sources, but I know that we have enough, including those alternate funds that we’ve been investing in savings,” Lorenz advised. “I get somewhat anxious when we start talking about a bigger scope in terms of HVAC, but with the alternate we can price that. We’re going to be okay there. It’s just when we start getting too much beyond that, it creates a little bit of anxiety because we’re still looking at other projects in the future at other needs, frankly, buses and such.”
The board approved the construction documents for the renovation project, including the HVAC alternate, as presented.