Hermitage District Superintendent Richard Rankin says he will have no trouble meeting a state 30-day allowance to come up with a corrective plan to address building deficiencies. Rankin says the Hermitage schools will be safe and will pose no health threat to the district's 522 students when classes start this fall.

All the red-brick school buildings in rural Hermitage School District were recently renovated or are new. But the district this week became the first to make the state's distressed buildings list.

State officials say the buildings were not constructed or renovated according to project specifications and state codes. The former school construction superintendent says the codes changed over the course of the projects and workers were on a hurried construction schedule so that the district could take advantage of new state funding.

Whatever the reason, Rankin says the problems he inherited when he took over as superintendent last year will be fixed.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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