KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Knox County Schools' playgrounds are getting a facelift.
This comes after the announcement of the Playspace Fund on Monday. It was created by the Knox Education Foundation and is made of public and private funding.
"So for nearly 30 years, the school system has had an unofficial policy, that's the playgrounds are on the community, that means the parents, the teachers, the students have had to fundraise to repair or replace broken playgrounds. And so we found that it's really hard for a lot of communities to fundraise to take the time," Board Chair of Knox Education Foundation Larsen Jay said. "We wanted to find a way to take that financial burden off of the communities and establish a new place-based fund that can help fund playgrounds and kind of catch up on 30 years of this challenge."
The Knox Education Foundation reports that $2.2 million has been committed for the entire project. The playground improvement will be done in different phases, starting with Phase 1 which will cost $1.4 million. A certified playground inspector for the school district deemed seven schools to have the most high need and 11 playgrounds in total will be done for Phase 1.
Each school will receive a different amount of funding.
"Every school playground is going to be a little bit different. But our goal is to sort of bring everybody up to sort of a standardized, good level where they have a nice, fun, safe playground," Jay said.
Belle Morris Elementary School is in Phase 1 and will be getting two playgrounds, one for Pre-K and one for older students. The difference, according to Knox Education Foundation, is that Pre-K playgrounds have designated play structures for 2 to 5-year-olds and typical elementary playground equipment is for ages 5 to 12.
David Guyer, the principal of Belle Morris Elementary School, said he's excited for his students to get a new playground.
"It's going to contribute not just recess time, but also to our academic growth and attendance and everything, emotional health, like good playtime is so good for kids. When I found out I was over the moon. We've been raising money for like 15 years. And we were nowhere near being able to buy a new playground for our school. So I'm just really excited for our students to be able to enjoy it," Guyer said.
Fountain City Elementary School is also receiving a new playground.
Hallie Hearnes, a member of the school's parent-teacher organization, said fundraising for the new playground included support from local businesses and organizations, a "Pennies for Playground" fundraiser and even student-led efforts like lemonade stands and asking for donations for the playground instead of birthday gifts. She says she's thankful for the funding.
"This takes us beyond what we thought we could get in terms of replacement of our playground. So it's much better than what we thought that we could get where we were fundraising-wise," Hearnes said.
Larsen Jay says there will be three total phases and the goal is to be done with Phase 1 by the end of 2024 and the last phase by the end of 2027.