The Warren County R-III School Board received an update regarding the structural concerns at Black Hawk Middle School last Thursday.Wade Welch from Hoener Associates discussed with the board about options for moving forward with repair of the cracks in the wall along the west side of the building. He says the first part of the process would be to monitor the cracks over a period of time until crews are able to get in and bore the area to determine moisture levels.“Since the floor slab appears to be dropping, we want to do some investigative work below the slab,” said Welch. “There’s a possible void beneath the slab causing it to fall.”He said this isn’t particularly uncommon, as the contractor had experienced similar issues with other patron districts it serves. In response to queries by the board, Welch says he doesn’t believe this has anything to do with recent construction to the new entryway just north of the crack.“This is more likely due to soil movement or severe drying out in the past year,” said Welch. “This is the third building of our clients that have had issues like that were about the same age.”Welch provide two options for locating utilities and recommended using Hydrovac Services over GPS locating services. Hydrovac would cost $1,800 versus $1,200 for GPS location. The services will be performed by Professional Services Industry of St. Louis.“Based on having to perform exploration within very close vicinity to the building and the existing geothermal wells, PSI recommends that at least one of the services be provided,” said the company in a statement to the board. “It should be noted that if the GPR locating services are utilized, there may be difficulty in developing a sufficiently accurate determination of the location of the utilities to perform borings due to saturated clays at the site.”It is anticipated that the cost of monitoring and creating a report to determine how to move forward will cost the district around $12,325.Assistant Superintendent Dr. Aaron Jones says crack monitors will be installed and the district will be responsible for checking and reporting those results in order to save on costs.“The group will put up the crack monitors and then the school can go in and check it instead of them driving out,” said Jones.He expects the bulk of the work to be done during mid-March.“We’ll contact the group, and they’ll come in over spring break and do the boring to test the moisture sample in the dirt,” said Jones.

Warren County School District administrators said a large crack visible inside and outside Black Hawk Middle could be a sign of settling in the building's foundation.