A disagreement between the Red Bud School District and Regional Office of Education concerning school renovations was recently settled in Randolph County Circuit Court.

As previously reported, the situation centers around construction and renovation done at Red Bud Elementary School between 2022 and 2023.

Regional Superintendent Kelton Davis originally issued a building permit for the construction of a gymnasium as well as several other additions to the existing building.

After construction in accordance with the building permit was concluded through the district’s architect firm Cordogan Clark in St. Louis, a certificate of occupancy was filed in November 2023.

Davis, acting in his capacity as the code official for school construction projects, identified what he found to be several issues with the renovations, including handicap access to the added stage requiring travel through several other rooms and the emergency exit for the gym lacking a paved path to a common pathway.

He also noted a “dead-end corridor” – a corridor lacking a direct exit from the building – which exceeded a length limitation in the building code.

Also as previously reported, Red Bud Superintendent of Schools Jonathan Tallman has emphasized the Red Bud School Board’s trust in the architect firm – stressing the qualifications of the hired architects – and their confirmation that the building and its recent renovations are up to code.

The conflict between the ROE and Red Bud School District focused on the aforementioned certificate of occupancy, as Davis refused to sign the district’s application given the code violations he perceived.

A June 28 court hearing resulted in an order from Judge Jeremy Walker for Davis to execute the application for occupancy “as the district has complied with all procedures for the issuance of the occupancy permit.”

Tallman expressed his positive opinion of the ruling, reiterating the school board’s thoughts on the architecture firm.

“Our board of education is just happy that it’s all behind us,” Tallman said. “They are extremely proud of the addition that they built, and they are extremely confident in the professional opinion of their architecture firm that has been building schools for decades that it is compliant and safe. And we’re pleased that the judge ruled the way he did.”

Davis, however, also expressed a degree of satisfaction with the judge’s ruling, though his objection is noted on the order.

As Davis described, the ruling focuses on the administrative aspect of the disagreement rather than getting into the matter of code violations, as the order chiefly focused on the district’s compliance with procedures for the issuance of the occupancy permit.

With the apparent violations not addressed according to Davis, he expects to bring them up again in the future.

“As our office inspects every building every year and at anytime they’re in violation, I now have the explicit authority to identify those violations,” Davis said. “If the school will not adequately address those violations, I can close the building, they have 15 days in which to appeal to the State Board of Education, and in order for the building to open up, it has to be approved by myself and another third party.”

“We really, functionally, haven’t gotten any further,” Davis continued. “They have their occupancy permit, but now I have the administrative responsibility to cite them for the violations.”

Though Davis expressed the idea of pursuing the apparent code violations in the future, Barney Mundorf, an attorney representing the district in this case, said he would be unable to do so, noting wording in the signed occupancy permit indicating that “no certificate of occupancy was issued until the discrepancies were remedied.”

“Any issues Mr. Davis cited as code violations before or at the court hearing are now moot and he cannot now go back, or through a different avenue, cite the school district for those same code violations,” Mundorf said.