Year-round students at Durant Road Elementary School in Raleigh will start their school year in a different building as work progresses on critical repairs to their building and two other Wake County schools.
Year-round classes begin at Durant Road Elementary School on Thursday, July 30, but Durant is among three Wake County schools in need of structural repairs before students can return to classrooms.
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As of Friday, repairs were moving along on schedule. Wake County Schools said crews were more than halfway done with most of the work.
Creech Road Elementary and Davis Drive Elementary are also getting repair work for structural issues. Unlike Durant Road Elementary, those are traditional calendar schools.
Durant Road teachers and students will teach and learn at Abbotts Creek Elementary School, which is just down the road and less than a half-mile away.
Durant students and teachers will use Abbotts Creek Elementary School until the work at Durant is complete. The work is scheduled to be complete by Aug. 17, one week before classes begin for traditional calendar Abbotts Creek students on Aug. 24.
Structural problems added a new headache for the district, which has had infrastructure challenges for years. Particularly, HVAC issues.
Wake Schools Superintendent Robert Taylor gave kudos to the teams working quickly to fix the issues before it becomes a logistical problem when schools are back in full swing.
"This was an unexpected disruption and I wanted to thank everyone involved for the way they responded," he said. "That includes our facilities team who moved quickly to assess the situation, develop a repair plan, and begin work so these schools can safely reopen as soon as possible."
Work is expected to be complete at the two other affected schools -- Creech Road Elementary in Garner and Davis Drive Elementary in Cary -- by August 21. The first day of school is Monday, Aug. 24.