LEE COUNTY, S.C. — News19 is On Your Side with a closer look at a hole in the roof of a Lee County school.
A viewer sent us a picture of a gaping opening on the roof of a wing at Dennis Elementary School in Bishopville. The viewer questioned the safety for students who are being educated there. Some others in the community also have been asking about why the issue hasn't been fixed.
"We would never ever put our students nor our staff in harm's way," said Lee County School Superintendent Bernard McDaniel Thursday.
Caution tape and decay accompany the hole that has apparently been at a section of the school for about five years.
"I'd like everyone to know that this is something we addressed five years ago when we did a renovation of a major part of the building when we vacated another school due to a roofing issue there that was in an excess of over a million dollars to be repaired," McDaniel said. "We opted to renovate this building and we never intended to use the portion of the building where the roof is caving in now."
In board meeting minutes from September of 2016, Dr. Wanda Andrews, the superintendent at that time, addressed the issue. "The building was inspected and it does meet the requirements for both the State Department of Education and DHEC," she said back then. "We have followed what was required of the school district."
As recently as a few weeks ago, McDaniel said that the building was looked at again this past August by the State Fire Marshal's Office as well as the office of school facilities at the state department of education.
"They inspected the facilities, they saw that it was secured from the inside, and it was obvious that we were not using that building even though we could've used it for storage," he said. "We have not entered that building we have not used it for any reason."
McDaniel says it was cleared again for safe use and that the district has a plan in place to take care of the issue for good.
"We currently are securing bids to have that portion of the building demolished," he said. "So we do have a plan to address that part of the issue, but in the long term, we're going to have to address some facility needs in the long term as well."
McDaniel says they are working with the state's health agency, DHEC, to get that clearance for demolition.
"I think our students deserve better, I know they deserve better but I would no way--- this is the part that bothers me-- for anyone to believe that we will put our students or our staff in a situation that would be dangerous to them. We would never do that."
News19 did hear back from the state fire marshal's office, who said that the firewall that is in between the two buildings has been maintained as designed. They said that the South Carolina Department of Education facilities office is in charge of the construction renovation.
News19 reached out to that agency as well but have not heard back yet.