Decades old school roofs to be replaced over summer break

After almost two decades of enduring leaks, Meneley and Jacks Valley Elementary Schools are getting new roofs over the summer and it’s not going to cost the Douglas County School District a dime.

Douglas County School District’s Director of Facilities Phillip Demus and Garland Co., who installed the roofs, brought up the issue to the Douglas County School Board at the April 11 meeting.

“Phil does deserve all the credit,” said Douglas County Superintendent Keith Lewis. “He’s been a bulldog in this operation, and I have high expectations and no doubt he exceeds those expectations on behalf of the school district.”

Demus said he first noticed the issue around 2006 when two of his children were attending Meneley Elementary School and he observed tarps and hoses hanging from the school roof and draining into buckets and trash cans as a means to contain the issue.

Both schools were built using the same plans that called for flat roofs. Meneley opened in 1979 Jacks Valley opened in September 1982.

Fast forward to September 2020, when Demus was hired as the Douglas County School District’s Director of Facilities, he said Meneley and Jacks Valley Elementary School were still leaking just as bad, if not worse than they had been 14 years ago.

“The roofs were put on many years ago and came with a 30-year guarantee,” said Lewis. “After many years of troubleshooting to fix the leaks, the Garland Roofing (company) has decided to replace the roofs at no cost to the district.”

The Garland Company is a roofing industry based in Clevland, Ohio, serving throughout the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom, according to the website.

“I would like to say every contractor is perfect and every install is perfect, but it’s not,” said Tim Samiego from Garland Co. at the April school board meeting.

It is stated on Garlandco.com that the company has been a reliable and proven leader in commercial building industry since 1895, putting customers first and honoring core values.

“We stand behind our company,” said Samiego. “We don’t expect anything in return, we just want to do what is right.”

Samiego explained during the meeting that Garland Co. is going to pay $1.2 million in labor and furnish $800,000 in materials to install new roofs at the schools and not only make the elementary schools watertight, but improve Douglas High school roofs too.

“They installed a new roof at Douglas High School on the 100 and 200 buildings,” said Demus. “In all of this, it’s over $3 million dollars that Garland roofing has given back to DCSD in warranty work. It is really unprecedented that any roofing company does this even after 3-5 years.”