NORTH JACKSON School walls to get repairs

The job will cost about $30,000, the architect says.
By IAN HILL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
NORTH JACKSON -- Students won't have to worry about getting hit by falling bricks as they walk into Jackson-Milton High School this fall.
"We're going to make some emergency repairs," Youngstown architect Raymond Jaminet said.
School officials discovered in late June that some of the bricks in the high school's exterior walls look as if they're being pushed out from the inside. The Jackson-Milton board of education decided Thursday to temporarily fix the walls.
Jaminet was hired by the board to study problems with the walls.
Cause: A report from a Youngstown engineering firm states that the damage is caused by water that has collected in the walls above the school's second-story windows. The water, which leaked from the school's roof, caused the steel beams holding up the brick to rust away.
As a result, pressure from the bricks at the top of the building is pushing the brick above the second-story windows out.
Jaminet said the walls will be fixed by replacing the bricks that are being pushed out with new bricks. Some of the mortar above the windows also will be replaced, he said.
The repairs will cost about $30,000 and will be complete before the beginning of school in September. Jaminet said he expected the repairs to begin within the next few weeks.
School officials were concerned that the repairs could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, adding to the district's financial woes. The district has been in fiscal emergency for the past three years.
Quick fix: Jaminet stressed that the latest repairs will be a "three- to five-year fix."
"This is only to get them through until they build a new building," he said.
Jackson-Milton Superintendent Warne Palmer has said the school board may place a bond issue on the ballot next May to help pay for the construction of a new high school.
hill@vindy.com