Knox School Board Meets with Constituents to Discuss Palmer Wing

This spring, the Knox Community School Board met with a committee to discuss issues with the east end of the Elementary School, known as the Palmer Wing. The committee has found that there are some issues that need to be fixed with the 60-year-old infrastructure and building. The infrastructure is not built for today’s technology needs in terms of electric capacity and space. and water lines need to be replaced.

On Monday, the Board met with some of the members of that committee and the public to further discuss the old Palmer wing. Superintendent A.J. Gappa says three options were laid out on the table:

“One option would be to do nothing and keep patching things up as we go along. The second option would be to renovate part of the old wing of the Elementary School and the third option is maybe to take down part of the old Elementary School and build something new. The consensus, it seemed, was that the first option was not viable. Therefore, the Board is going to explore what we would have to do in order to either renovate or to build a new wing for the Elementary School,” Gappa said.

Mr. Gappa said there are many questions that need to be answered before the Board moves forward with the possible project.

“What would that do to tax rates in the community? How much would it cost to do either one or the other and how would those costs compare to each other? Where could the School Board get the best bang for their buck? I think in the near future the committee the Board had put together earlier is going to meet with some experts in different areas and try to answer those questions for the community.”