Page 27 - Cassi Pearson News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

The Knoxville School Board recently decided to move back to Tier 2 of its Facilities Usage Plan. This allows all indoor facilities to be used by groups of 25 people or fewer. Superintendent Cassi Pearson says that the board plans to expand to Tier 3 in the relatively near future, but that COVID-19 case counts remain too high at this time. “The board will take another look at that at its next meeting at the end of January. In order to move to Tier 3, which would allow outside groups to have large gatherings, the county numbers are going to need to come down a little bit. Once that happens, I...

The first semester is coming to a close at Knoxville Schools. Superintendent Cassi Pearson says this is a big milestone in what’s been a challenging year, and thanks all students, parents and staff for taking COVID-19 preventative measures seriously. “Last summer, I don’t know if there was a lot of hope that we’d still be in session, in person in January. It’s really exciting that we’re here, our numbers are looking great inside the district, and we expect that to continue. Our students and staff are doing all the safety measures we need them to do, and we appreciate that. Our fam...

The Knoxville School Board recently held a joint work session with the Knoxville City Council regarding the VA Campus development project and the possibility of having a school on the site. Superintendent Cassi Pearson says that space is an attractive option for a variety of reasons. “Knowing that that ground is very close to our other campuses is very appealing. Knowing that a future school building in that area could also be a future sales pitch for families who are wanting to move, and even developers, as Confluence had mentioned. Whenever you’re doing new housing developments, if they...

The Knoxville School Board awarded a precast bid package to MPC Enterprises at its meeting Monday evening totaling $1,353,600. Superintendent Cassi Pearson explains that precast is a building material that will be used for the walls in the new middle school. “We have precast walls in our auditorium, and a great option instead of masonry brick. It’s a lot less time consuming, and from a financial standpoint, serves the purpose very well. We were excited that those concrete walls came in under budget. That’s a great place to start a project. We were also able to find a company that will f...

As of the Knoxville Community School District’s most recent update on absentee numbers, 0.82 percent of students are absent due to a positive COVID-19 test. 2.65 percent of students are absent due to illness of any kind. One-point-75 percent of school staff were absent due to a positive test, while 2.84 percent were absent due to general illness or quarantining. The positivity rate in Marion County is at 17 percent, which is above the 15 percent threshold which indicates that schools can apply for a waiver to request remote learning. All of these values are slightly higher than last week’...