New, existing Town schools ‘elementary,’ KCS suggests to Board-Ed
Knox County Schools brass is recommending Farragut public schools below sixth grade become kindergarten-through-fifth grade schools, including the new school to be built on 41 acres along Roring Road, and behind Ingles, near Kingston Pike.
Dr. Garfield Adams, KCS assistant superintendent who has led the effort to collect public feedback and professional data, presented the final KCS recommendation, costing around $47 million, to Knox County Board of Education during a special work session Monday evening, Jan. 8.
If approved, a “tentative and ideal” new school construction start would be during the ’25-26 school year, and be completed and ready to open by the 2026-27 year — but this is far from certain.
An additional $3 million was recommended for renovations of three existing Farragut public schools, Adams said KCS recommeneded.
No Board decision was made.
“So our KCS solution, what we decided to bring before the Board, is to construct a K-through-5 elementary school on Boring Road. The programmatic capacity would be 1,200,” Adams said. “The approximate cost would be $47 million. We plan to come back before the Board to ask for renovations to the primary, intermediate and middle school, and that is to do a conversion over to the K-through-5 elementary.
“And so we plan on asking for a fund balance designation to give programmatic capacity for the Farragut Primary School, which would be a new elementary school of 753 students; the programmatic capacity for the Farragut Intermediate School, which would be K- through 5; and approximate renovation and portable removal costs,” he added.
With the $3 million, “We will explore possible and future freshman academy additions on Farragut High School,” Adams recommended. “And that is something that we will continue to look at. ... We’ll get input from administration, the community, the school board.”
Specific benefits
Saying public feedback leaned toward a pro-elementary focus, “We really needed to answer the call as to how we address the needs at the elementary level,” Adams said. “So this solution will provide for the smallest possible school sizes while creating capacity for growth across all Farragut elementary schools.
“It maintains the middle school proximity to the high school — which, again, this is something that the community of Farragut really asked for,” he added. “It reduces the number of school transitions for students, and it addresses traffic concerns related to Boring Road.”
