After a lengthy debate between the Hall County Board of Commissioners and Board of Education, the pothole-filled driveway to Sardis Enrichment School will be fixed after all.

School board officials announced Friday morning that Allied Paving will patch the potholes free of charge.

"They were doing a paving project with Wauka Mountain (Multiple Intelligences Academy)," Superintendent Will Schofield said. "Damon Gibbs asked them how much it would cost to pave Sardis and they said they would do it gratis."

The county owns the 560-foot long driveway. Originally, commissioners asked the school board to help pay for repairs, as it is heavily used by Sardis parents. County school officials rejected the proposal at their meeting last week.

The school board voted Monday to deed a 50-foot barrier around the driveway to the county, pending the results of a survey taken of the property Tuesday. The barrier would let the driveway meet the county's road maintenance standards.

Commissioners chose not to make the driveway a
public road at their Thursday meeting, and the driveway repairs were back at square one until officials spoke with Allied Paving.

Bryan Jones, project manager for Allied Paving, said the Sardis project will be done next week.

"We know the funds are tight," he said. "We've done a lot of work in the community ... We're just doing remedial work on the potholes."

Gibbs, Hall County Schools' Special Local Option Sales Tax coordinator, said the school board will be filling the potholes but not repaving the driveway entirely, which was the original plan.

The Sardis driveway joins a long list of Hall County and Gainesville schools' summer construction projects.

"I got all kinds of stuff going on," said Keith Vincent, the director of maintenance and operations for Gainesville
City Schools.

Wood's Mill Academy got new walls, power supply, paint and a host of other renovations in preparation for Fair Street International Baccalaureate World School moving in. New playgrounds are being installed for students at four of the five city elementary schools and athletic facilities at Gainesville High School were revamped, among other projects.

Construction at Hall County schools includes the four classrooms added onto East Hall High School and heating, ventilation and air conditioning unit upgrades for West Hall High, East Hall Middle and North Hall Middle schools, Gibbs said.

The city has plans for continued construction once the school year begins, Vincent said.

"We're doing work on the Enota canopy ad we'll be installing a new camera system at New Holland and a new security system as well," he said.

"We try to tackle most of the big stuff over the summer, so most of this is going to be maintenance and minor repairs."