The Knox Community School Corporation is moving ahead with exploring possible facility improvements. On Tuesday, the school board voted to hire architectural firm Schmidt Associates to develop plans for future construction. The firm recently completed a facilities study for the corporation, and board members felt it made sense to stick with the same company.
But that doesn’t mean that all the recommendations the company came up with will necessarily be implemented, according to Superintendent Dr. William Reichhart. “In hiring an architect, you’re going to work with an architect to engage the community and listen to the community’s concerns about what they want for our school district, based upon our evidence, meaning our buildings of what we have right now, in terms of what we want to do,” Reichhart told board members. “And the architect will be able to guide the board and our community in making good choices, in terms of how much would this option cost, how much would this option cost, how much would that option cost us.”
Among other changes, Schmidt Associates’ facilities study proposed demolishing the older section of the elementary school and re-configuring the current middle school building into an “intermediate school” for grades three through six. The existing high school would house grades seven through 12, after getting a 50,000-square-foot addition.
Reichhart said those recommendations will be open to discussion, as the process moves forward.
