Final feedback points before recommending new school grade-level to School Board
Last of 3-part series on Farragut school growth
On the verge of presenting its recommendation for what grade level the new Farragut public school should be — based on professional studies and public feedback — to the Board of Education this month, Knox County Schools brass, led by assistant superintendent Dr. Garfield Adams, have had a lot of feedback to weigh and situations to access.
Farragut High consideration: class size
About FHS’s current enrollment of roughly 2,100 students, Adams said you shouldn’t have a cookie cutter “30 or 25 students per class” approach to all classes, when much smaller class sizes are best for “special education, English language learners, classes for that response to intervention, which is RTI.
“Think about advanced placement courses. Think about your electives. … You’re talking about your high achievers. … So that really alters the way that you program for a school. … We want smaller classroom sizes for students who need additional support. And so when you look at that, you can’t look at the classroom as 30 students in the classroom at any given time.”
Traffic
As for traffic, “I will tell you, I’ve taken a few field trips to Farragut High School, Middle School, Intermediate … just to see what it was like. It was not fun,” Adams said. “I understand some of the traffic concerns that you all have. That’s one of the reasons when we talk about building a new school, whatever that school may be.”
Ambitious build goal/three options
Adams labeled it “a very lofty, ambitious goal” for KCS to have all decisions made, bids taken and contractors hired leading to ground being broken during the 2025-26 school year. “That’s when we plan on doing construction. … We are going to have to push to reach that goal.”
Of the three options KCS has presented for public feedback, “Option 1 builds capacity in elementary schools; Option 2 builds capacity in all Farragut (public) schools; Option 3 builds capacity in elementary and high schools,” Adams said.
Zoning
He warned that current zoning of many Farragut Primary and Intermediate school students would change “if you built another elementary school. So you’re shuffling students around where they live to attend whatever school they’re zoned for.”
Freshman Academy issues
If the FHS freshman academy is located in the current FIS building, a parent asked “what electives or other courses outside of their academy and hallway would they need access to? Have you considered how they will be able to walk all the way to the high school — and will they be given time to do that?”
“Yes, they would,” Adams said. “And I do want to reassure you that there is a great degree of separation for whether it’s the Middle School and the Freshman Academy or whether it’s the Freshman Academy and the Intermediate School.
“… Yes, they would walk back and forth,” he added. “I did do a little bit of research just to see how we function as a county, and 11 out of 15 of our high schools access their classes through different campuses.”
Though sometimes exposing these students to rough weather, Adams said, “I will tell you, we have multiple campuses that are open to the elements.”
Another parent asked, “Will there be some renovations done to those buildings so that the (Freshman Academy) science classes can have lab science classes because they’re not here for that right now?”
“If Dr. (Jon) Bartlett (FHS principal) wanted science labs within the existing intermediate/middle school, then yes, we would make those necessary renovations,” Adams said.
Special needs situation
Another parent asked, “What about our students that have IEPs and special education and maybe have difficulty with walking across campus? What accommodations are we going to make to be sure that they have so that they can participate with their peers, but also still be participating on the campus?
“I can assure you that we will take care of that,” Adams said.
Bus transportation status
About bus transportation, Ryan Dillingham, KCS director of transportation, said “the wait times, the loading, those sorts of things, that’s because I don’t have enough bus drivers.”
However, “I actually, tonight, feel better about the number of bus drivers that I have than I have in probably four years,” he added. “We’re not where we want to be, but we’re moving in the right direction. That is a separate issue from this. And none of these options are going to exacerbate the problems that currently exist.”
Annex not “feasible”
Stephanie Thompson of FMS PTO said she is among those “proposing for the new build to be a K-5 elementary school. And then, Option 2, the cost for that is $67 million. So if you take the difference between (2 and Option I), which is $24 million, we would like to propose to build an annex to FHS for the Freshman Academy, similar to what was approved for Hardin Valley. That way, our ninth-graders can stay on that campus and they can walk to band and they can walk to lunch and they can walk to their electives.”
“There’s no land available on any of the school sites,” said Douglas Shover, KCS director of facilities and new construction, citing a 2021 feasibility study done by a firm. “… That feasibility study is a very current study. So you’re not going to get a different result from a feasibility study.”
