Beecher District Pushes Summer Roof, Window Projects Toward Fall Deadline

Beecher 200-U Board of Education Meeting | June 10, 2026

Article Summary: Beecher 200-U administrators told the board that roofing, window and floor projects are progressing across the elementary, junior high and high school buildings, with the elementary’s new second-floor windows expected to be finished by early July. The board declined to act on an $11,000 add-on parapet quote, directing staff to seek competing bids first.

Summer Construction Key Points:

• New roofing and second-floor windows at Beecher Elementary are expected to wrap by late June or early July; floor restoration is underway at the junior high.
• Work is being drawn from the district’s Health Life Safety fund, reported in the treasurer’s update at roughly $478,000.
• The board held off on an $11,000 change order to cap a lower parapet section, asking staff to gather additional quotes.
• Rain delayed the elementary roof start by two days, but crews were back on the roof the day of the meeting.

The update came during the superintendent’s report at the board’s regular meeting, held at 6 p.m. in the Beecher High School library. Superintendent Jack Gaham walked the board through projects that began almost immediately after the school year ended, framing them as Health Life Safety improvements — the category Illinois districts use for code, roofing and building-safety work.

Projects Across Three Buildings

At Beecher Elementary, a roofing contractor the district referred to as Langles had started the roofing and parapet work and was on site the day of the meeting, Gaham said. The crew got going two days late because of rain, but he estimated the roofing would take about two weeks, with new second-floor windows on roughly the same timeline.

“You should have a whole new second floor by the end of June, hopefully no later than early July,” Gaham told the board. He said the new windows would resemble the building’s lower-level units — a metal top section beneath the drop ceiling, the window itself, and sections that open. Gaham and Maintenance Director Nathan Stanula met with the roofing crew on the roof the prior Wednesday to review the scope.

At the junior high, crews had already completed door work and begun stripping floors down to the underlying tile ahead of re-waxing, which Gaham said Stanula expected to start on the athletic hallway the following week. “It’s unbelievable how many layers of wax,” the superintendent said, noting the floors had not been taken down to bare tile in roughly two decades. At the elementary, a closet door flagged by the fire marshal as an impermissible residential-style door was also upgraded, and two classrooms received new doors that did not require the heavier framing work needed elsewhere.

Board Holds Off on $11,000 Parapet Quote

Gaham also raised a possible add-on: while meeting with the project’s construction manager — referred to in the meeting as GRP — on the elementary roof, a representative named Jeremy offered to have the roofing company quote capping work on a lower parapet section. The figure came back at $11,000.

Gaham told the board he could not vouch for the number on its own. “I can’t tell you if this is a good number or a bad number,” he said, adding that Stanula was not especially concerned about the condition and that the work could be handled later by another vendor. Because the item would be a change order rather than a new contract, no vote was required; the board could simply authorize it. Members instead signaled they wanted competing quotes before committing, and Gaham said he would tell the contractor to proceed with the existing scope and revisit the parapet later.

The exact contract values for the larger roofing, window and flooring work were not read into the record at the meeting, and the treasurer’s report — which included the Health Life Safety fund balance — was delivered with several figures that were difficult to capture from the meeting audio. Gaham noted the Health Life Safety balance “will start going down with the project starting.”