Maintenance
The MCS Maintenance Department employees are on call for any building within the district 24/7 365 days a year. It is their responsibility to keep all buildings in the district in good repair and well maintained. Maintenance employees perform regular preventive maintenance that includes weekly door checks, emergency lighting testing, and making sure that buildings comply with all state building safety codes. They also work with the fire marshal, health inspector, state boiler inspector, state backflow prevention, and OSHA.
Maintenance Supervisor Jim Aytes is responsible for the procurement and disbursement of all maintenance supplies and materials. He also schedules and assigns tasks to his employees. HVAC Supervisor Glinn Phillips is responsible for the preventive maintenance and repair of all of the heating and air conditioning units at each school. In addition, his HVAC employees work with the fire alarms, intercoms, and bells.
All maintenance and HVAC employees work closely with the Technology Department and use mobile devices including smartphones and tablets that have improved efficiency and productivity. All work orders are submitted electronically by each school’s lead custodian, principal or lead secretary to the Maintenance or HVAC Supervisors. All maintenance employees use a mobile device to receive and view work orders in the field. This allows them to inspect, troubleshoot, and repair maintenance issues in a timelier manner. The mobile devices, which connect to the district’s wireless network, are also used to look up wiring diagrams and to research the best way to perform repairs. Employees can order parts online and take photos of the needed parts. Using chat and two-way cameras, supervisors at one location have even walked employees through repair procedures at another location.
The Morgan County School District is a green district. All cleaning chemicals are green and regular energy audits help insure that each building is energy efficient. Two schools, Coalfield and Sunbright, have “green” roofs that are colored white to reflect the sunlight. The roof at Oakdale is in Stage One of becoming a “green” roof also. With these “green” roofs, classrooms remain 10 degrees cooler in hot weather and saves considerably on cooling costs. These “green” roofs also register 80 to 90 degrees cooler than traditional black roofs. This cooler roof temperature helps prolong the life of the roof.
School custodians are trained once a year for a full day each spring and each school’s lead custodian trains twice a year. School hallways are regularly cleaned with a Zamboni-type machine that utilizes the green chemicals. Classroom floors are stripped and waxed at least once a year. A new program is now in place where longer lasting wax is being applied to the hallways that must be stripped and rewaxed every three years. HVAC units in each classroom are sterilized twice a year with a germicidal cleaner. School custodians are fully responsible for day-to-day cleaning as well as special events, such as ballgames and special school and community events.
The Maintenance/HVAC Department moved into a new facility on Flat Fork Road adjacent to the Central Office in February 2011. This new facility has offices for the supervisors as well as a fully equipped shop where HVAC parts, electrical parts, lighting parts, door hardware, window hardware, and school zone sign parts are organized and stored.
