Chvaletice are repairing the roof of the monumentally protected school by Karel Řepa

"We must protect our monuments; it is a beautiful functionalist building," added the mayor of the three-thousand-inhabitant town.

The building is surrounded by scaffolding. The construction company is stabilizing the trusses, restoring the roofing elements, and changing the roof covering. The work is expected to finish sometime in September. The city estimates the costs at 1.6 million crowns, and the mayor hopes that the town hall will also receive a grant.

"We have already done the staircase and the garden. As soon as we manage to get some funding, we will invest in the school. We have a poor population count, and for the size of our town, there are no larger grants,” Zaklová said.

The school dates back to 1930. It was a small multi-grade school from the First Republic, although it is more reminiscent of a villa in its layout. It functioned until the 1960s. The half-cylindrical staircase, concrete coffered ceiling, and the combination of brick masonry with uncolored cement plaster are typical elements that Řepa favored.

The remote Mining Quarter, where the school has been unused for about ten years, was once the center of the village. By the early 1950s, it had about a hundred homesteads. When manganese ore began to be mined in the area, the state gradually expropriated and demolished the village. The expansion of mining, which was also supposed to lead to the demolition of the school, ultimately did not take place.