As facility upgrade talks continue at the Knox Community School Corporation, the next major step in the process will involve putting community members in the driver’s seat of discussions.
Thomas Neff and Eric Wolf, representatives of the architecture and engineering firm Schmidt Associates, came before Knox School Board members Wednesday evening to go over the vital role that the school corporation’s community task force will play in this process.
Neff elaborated on what the task force is stating, “It’s asking a group of people to provide input and information about what they perceive the Knox Community School Corporation to be all about […] because at the end of the day you will go to the public and ask them to support the initiative.”
Superintendent William Reichhart mentioned that the task force is comprised of a diverse group of community members from various age groups and walks of life. Administrative assistant Billie Kruger confirmed that there were a little more than 20 individuals who confirmed that they’d be a part of the group.
Another aspect of the presentation was going over the tentative schedule for the community-driven portion of the process.
Neff said one meeting will take place later this month on December 12th where taskforce members will take a questionnaire to identify positive and negative attributes of the buildings that they’re already aware of.
The first session of the new year will include tours of the facilities to pinpoint particular problem areas.
Other meetings will involve recapping what’s been covered and establishing priority projects and develop effective strategies. According to the schedule provided, officials are hoping to set funding in motion by May of 2019.
When discussing the tools that would assist with this process, Neff highlighted using a blog as a platform for community input.
He mentioned that they’ve been utilizing personalized blogs as a tool to help gather information for their projects over the last 10 years.
Neff said that this seems to be the most effective way to get consistent participation from the community; whether that’s taskforce members or others who may not be a part of the actual taskforce but feel inclined to weigh in on the process.
In addition to being able to provide input on the blog, community members can also use it as a resource to reference the topics covered during the task-force workshops.
Neff explained that the blog is already functional and said that he’d be adding the information provided during Wednesday’s presentation to the page in the near future. Click the following link to view the Knox Community Schools Masterplan Blog.
