Scott County Schools construction staff reported an unexpected sinkhole at an elementary school construction site that sits directly beneath a planned footing and the storm shelter, and the board approved two BG-4 items for Garth Elementary during the same meeting.

Construction manager Tony told the board that workers found a deep sinkhole directly under a footing and storm-shelter area; water has continued to collect and the team has not yet located the throat where water drains, so crews have had to dig to rock and are managing continuous groundwater. ‘‘You can see what they ran into there…there’s water running in there,’’ Tony said, describing why the site work has grown more complicated.

Tony said special inspectors are on-site, and crews will need to drain water and remove poor soil before reconstructing a stable building pad, rather than simply filling with rock in place. He said engineers discussed moving the building footprint to avoid the sinkhole, but moving the footprint would have required redesigning storm structures and other fabricated elements, adding time and cost and preventing immediate progress.

Earlier on the agenda the board approved two BG-4 items related to Garth Elementary: a materials-only purchase order for windows with Central Kentucky Glass Company and a separate BG-4 for Buckeye Construction for brick repair and associated labor. Both motions passed on voice votes.

Tony reported general progress at the broader construction site — clearing, rock placement and shop drawings moving forward — and reminded the board that the team had used standard geotechnical borings on a grid pattern and that borings cannot guarantee discovery of subsurface features between sample points. He said the sinkhole situation requires careful remediation so the district’s new building remains sound for decades.

The transcript does not include a numeric tally for the BG-4 approvals; the motions were recorded as passing by voice vote. No change orders or cost estimates tied to remediation of the sinkhole were presented in the public portion of the meeting.