New K-8 school in East Knoxville is one step closer to reality after property swap
The Knox County Commission on March 31 approved an agreement with Knox County Schools to hand off the vacant property so KCS can build a new K-8 school in its place. In return, Knox County gets the Beaumont Magnet Academy and the Maynard Elementary School.
Those schools will close, and students will instead attend the new K-8 school KCS will build at the Rule School site at 1919 Vermont Ave in Lonsdale. Construction is expected to begin in the summer of 2026 and be completed by 2028.
Plans for the new school are moving along as the Beaumont, Lonsdale and Mechanicsville neighborhoods prepare for an influx of students.
In 2022, Knoxville received a $40 million federal grant for its Transforming Western Heights project, an affordable housing development that is projected to be home to 400 school-age kids. The development will add 740 low- and mixed-income homes to the neighborhood northwest of downtown.,
The new school also will fix atypical school zones where peer groups in the Mechanicsville, Lonsdale and Beaumont communities are split up as they progress through elementary, middle and high school. Students who now attend Beaumont Magnet Academy, Maynard, Lonsdale and West View elementary schools are split up to Bearden, Northwest, Whittle Springs or Vine for middle school, which then feed into Central, Fulton and West high schools. There are no standalone middle schools in those neighborhoods, a challenge a new K-8 school could address.
KCS allocated $66 million in its capital improvement funds last year in anticipation of a change in the neighborhoods.
"When you have a larger school, you have more teachers and more resources," Assistant Superintendent of Operations Garfield Adams said at a Jan. 22 community meeting. A new K-8 school "is a very innovative, creative idea," he said.
Under the state's funding formula, money follows individual children. At a bigger school, there would be greater flexibility of programming such as arts and science, Adams said.
Beaumont Magnet Academy: current enrollment - 507, projected enrollment by 2029 - 523
Maynard Elementary: current enrollment - 110, projected enrollment by 2029 - 200
Lonsdale Elementary: current enrollment - 547, projected enrollment by 2029 - 357
West View Elementary: current enrollment - 202, projected enrollment by 2029 - 203
Bearden Middle: current enrollment - 1,222, projected enrollment by 2029 - 1,348
Northwest Middle: current enrollment - 797, projected enrollment by 2029 - 1,107
Vine Middle Magnet: current enrollment - 456, projected enrollment by 2029 - 544
Whittle Springs Middle: current enrollment - 458, projected enrollment by 2029 - 439
A new charter school could come in.
In exchange for giving KCS the empty Rule School site, Knox County will receive the Beaumont and Maynard buildings and the land they're on.
The Tennessee General Assembly passed legislation that requires vacant public school properties to be made available for purchase by charter school sponsors before it can go on the market for everyone else.
Former Knox News reporter Areena Arora contributed to this report.
Allie Feinberg reports on politics for Knox News. Email her: allie.feinberg@knoxnews.com and follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @alliefeinberg.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Knox County property swap to provide space for new Lonsdale K-8 school
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