The District’s school modernization chief is warning of dire consequences for dozens of facilities if Ward 8 D.C. Councilman Marion Barry doesn’t lift his hold on millions of dollars destined for school renovation.

Barry’s disapproval of $8.9 million for school fixes, issued July 25, “will severely impede” the ability to “complete repairs to critical school projects scattered throughout the city before students return to the classrooms,” Allen Lew, executive director of the D.C. Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization, wrote in a letter to Council Chairman Vincent Gray.