Boring family fears, traffic concerns addressed
First of a 3-part series on grade-level, site input for the new Farragut school
With a Boring family member expressing concern about the impact a new Farragut school along Boring Road might have on her family home, which dates back to the 19th century, the second of three campus meetings seeking input about the make-up of the new school was held in Farragut Primary School before about 50 attendees Thursday, Nov. 30.
Dr. Garfield Adams, assistant superintendent of operations for Knox County Schools, joined Douglas Shover, KCS director of facilities and new construction, and Ryan Dillingham, KCS director of transportation, to lead a parent-teacher-administrator feedback/question-answer session about what grade-level school should be placed at the new site and the domino effect on the existing schools.
Adams said the input gathered will be a key element as he and other KCS officials recommend to Knox County Board of Education one of three plans detailed and discussed for input at each Town meeting (see three plans, costing from $42.6 to $66.8 million, on page 3A). That recommendation will happen in January.
“My family’s been there since the 1800s, and this is huge for us,” the Boring family member told the gathering. “And we have had seven generations that have lived there. It’s important to us. We love it.
“We want everybody to enjoy it like they have been,” she added. “People come and walk and take pictures. The whole community loves that road. We just want to make sure that the quality of it and the beauty of it is main thing.
“For me and all my cousins, this has been pretty emotional for us. Are you all going to work with us to help maintain the quality of our life there? I mean, we are all here to be great neighbors to you all. We want you to be great neighbors to us as well.”
“What I can say is I have not received any complaints from any families in my time here in Knox County Schools and even in my time here as an administrator,” Adams said about complaints possibly filed by residents adjacent to new Knox County school locations.
“What I do know is the community, they normally utilize our campuses, whether it’s walking around the park or the track or what have you, and they’re very involved ...,” he added. “... The school is the hub of the community.
“I can’t give you an example where we have not been great community partners. I can wholeheartedly say ‘yes, we will be great community partners.’”
In addressing the Boring woman’s concerns, “A couple of things that are working in our favor, and ultimately in your favor, on that site in that we’re not looking at a high school on that site,” Shover said. “So we don’t have athletic fields and the lighting that goes along with it. There are requirements now for site lighting for parking … you can’t have bleed over, and you have to have a study that shows you’re not bleeding light over on to adjacent properties.
“The other thing is — we just talked about it — we’ve got an oversized site (41 acres) for the building that we’re going to put on,” he added. “So we’re not going to have a building that is sitting right at the edge of the road.
“So I think there’s going to be enough opportunity for some buffer space between your homes and whatever ends up on that property for it not to be in your face when you walk out to get a paper.”
Site traffic concern
Meanwhile, “The Town of Farragut again is adamant” about avoiding traffic stacking onto Boring Road, Shover said.
“We’ll not be queuing cars out into the public way,” he added. “All that stacking will occur on our property,” also noting the “oversized site” would be ideal to handle stacking because “those things tend to start eating up a little bit of acreage as well.”
Three Options for school
The three grade-level options for the new school introduced by KCS through Adams are as follows (all three options would require rezoning):
Option I
• Build a new kindergarten through fifth-grade elementary school (1,200 capacity) while keeping all four Farragut schools as they are — not merging FPS into that school.
At a cost of $42.6 million, the least expensive option, this would greatly relieve overcrowing at FPS and FIS.
However, disadvantages listed were not addressing overcrowding at Farragut Middle and Farragut High schools, nor would it address traffic concerns at those two schools.
Option 2
Build a new middle school; establish a freshman academy.
FPS would be converted into K-through-fifth-grade; the existing intermediate school and two-thirds of existing FMS building would be expanded into a K-through-fifth-grade elementary school.
The remaining one-third of that building would house the new freshman academy. FHS would then be grades 10-to-12.
While easing high school and middle school traffic and providing a long-term, comprehensive solution for all four schools, there were cons:
Cost would rise to $66.8 million and the entire construction process would be longer.
Traffic-wise, it would increase the number of students arriving and departing from FIS from 1,000 to 1,400 — also making this the largest elementary school in the county.
Option 3
• Build a new kindergarten through fifth-grade elementary school (1,200 capacity) while converting FPS into an elementary school.
The existing FIS building would house the freshmen academy; FMS would be unchanged while FHS would become 10th-through-12th grade.
At a cost of $48.3 million, this option provides a long-term, comprehensive solution for elementary and high schools, in terms of advantages, while creating room for growth in four separate schools and give the freshmen academy a dedicated space.
Cons include a longer build process, does not address traffic issues at FHS or FMS and does not add capacity at the current middle school.
