ELIZABETHTOWN — The rocky start to building a new school in Tar Heel continued Wednesday, played out in a special called meeting of the Board of Education for Bladen County.
The $47.1 million project is in the early stages, with bids recently accepted for installation of a septic system. Dr. Jason Atkinson, the Bladen County Schools superintendent, told the board he was made aware on Monday of a miscalculation in the accepted bid from Quality Septic Services of Wendell.
The bidder made Atkinson aware.
The superintendent proposed to the board in a called special meeting to rescind acceptance of the bid, reject all bids, and reopen bidding for two days. It closes Friday at 3 p.m.
By unanimous vote of 7-0, the board took back its approval and reopened bidding. Board members Alan West and Tim Benton did not attend.
This is the third time the bidding has been opened.
The first resulted in one bid by the Tara Group of Lumberton for $425,000. In the second try, Bladenboro’s Callahan & Wells bid $435,000 and Quality Septic came in at $244,958.50.
At the called meeting a week ago to approve the bid, Atkinson told the board he had asked the engineer about the differences in the bids and did have them verified. He said all things were accounted for and proper in the proposal.
The current Tar Heel Middle School is grades 5-8 and is scheduled to be torn down and replaced on its N.C. 87 site with a state-of-the-art, $47,142,022 facility capable of housing 800 students in kindergarten through eighth grades.
Plain View Primary School, a K-4 school on Chicken Foot Road, will close.
The plan to construct was first brought forth when Dr. Robert Taylor was superintendent and Rusty Worley was director of maintenance for the school district. Taylor is now a deputy superintendent for the state, and Worley has left to work for the town of Elizabethtown.
The project designed by SfL+a is scheduled to be completed in time for students to enter in the fall of 2023. The new school will be built behind where the present school exists, tucked just inside the intersection of N.C. 87 and Tar Heel Ferry Road.
The existing school will come down in favor of parking.
Following some work by the Department of Transportation, the only school traffic to use N.C. 87 will be right-turn only for staff parking; student drop-off and pick-up will use Tar Heel Ferry Road. The access from the road to the school will have a major upgrade.
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