BERLIN – Stephen Decatur High School will get new visitor side bleachers in the spring.
The Worcester County Board of Education last week voted unanimously to approve replacement of the visitor side bleachers at Stephen Decatur. Installation is scheduled for the spring.
“This has been a long time coming for those in our community,” Superintendent Lou Taylor said.
Sam Slacum, the school system’s maintenance and operations manager, said he was requesting school board approval to utilize the Omnia Purchasing Cooperative to replace the visitors side bleachers at the high school. In his report to the board he noted that the existing bleachers were decades old and were no longer compliant with current safety standards. The new bleachers, which will cost $98,778.42, will seat 258 people with five ADA seats.
“Those bleachers on the visiting side, they were originally the home side bleachers 25-30 years ago,” Taylor said.
Taylor said the bleachers had been in need of replacement for some time.
“We have had someone inspect them every year and every year they have given us passing grades but have said to me on several occasions ‘I don’t know how much longer they’re going to last,’” Taylor said.
He thanked elected officials for moving the project forward.
“I thank the board for their vision on this and ultimately I thank the county commissioners for approving these bleachers to be replaced,” he said. “I will breathe a lot easier because we won’t hopefully have a safety issue moving forward every year, especially during the fall football season.”
The school board also approved a variety of other projects at last week’s meeting. Included among them were CCTV retrofits at Pocomoke Middle School, Snow Hill Middle School, Berlin Intermediate School and Stephen Decatur High School. Also approved were school fire alarm retrofits at Pocomoke Middle School and Snow Hill Middle School and energy recovery unit repairs at Pocomoke High School.
