The findings from a facility assessment that was recently conducted by the firm Schmidt Associates was presented to Knox school officials during a work session Monday night.
Several representatives from the company were present and Firm Principal Tom Neff provided the assessment recap to the school board members, administrators and other officials in attendance.
Neff explained that their assessments identify the deficiencies in each of the buildings and assigns a value so they can be ranked according to priority.
They consider a number of items during their assessment including utilization of space, size of the site, age of the building and comments from the staff. They do not factor in necessary corrections related to mechanical, electrical or plumbing systems.
He mentioned that their ranking system goes by percentages. Anything ranked above 60 percent is considered to be in good condition, with maintenance being the primary concern. The Knox Middle School was ranked the highest of all three facilities, with a suitability score of 63 percent.
Facilities that fall in the 60 percent to 50 percent range are considered fair to poor. That score reflects a combination of maintenance items as well as items that need repaired or replaced due to age. The Elementary School fell in the middle range, ranked at 56 percent.
Anything ranked under 50 percent is considered poor and that means there are many components that are failing. The High School came in with the lowest suitability score of 49 percent.
In addition to some particular problems that were highlighted at each building, the study revealed a few areas that need to be addressed at all three facilities.
The shared problems included complications with vehicular congestion and an issue with sound control within certain classrooms, cafeterias and corridors. Building security was also a consistent concern, with a lack of centralized entryways and vestibules at any of the schools.
Click the following link to view the PowerPoint Presentation over the Knox Schools Facility Assessment Recap.
Neff discussed a couple of hypothetical solutions that could potentially address some the facility issues in a portion of his presentation entitled “Where do you go from here?” Information from that section will be provided in a future story.
