FCS Unscripted
Sharing information about, and the stories behind, #Every1 in Franklin County Schools in Frankfort, Kentucky.
FCS Unscripted
An Inside Look at Facility Upgrades with Jennifer Perkins
What if your local school's facilities could rival those of a professional sports complex? Join us on this episode of FCS Unscripted, where we sit down with Jennifer Perkins, Chief Operating Officer of Franklin County Schools, to discover the transformative upgrades sweeping the district. From the expansive new grandstands at our football fields, perfect for packed graduation ceremonies, to the immersive LED lights that add a dynamic flair to high school sports events, Jennifer offers an inside look at the innovation shaping our students' experiences.
Jennifer also sheds light on the meticulous work behind resurfacing our school tracks to ensure athlete safety and longevity. Learn about the strategic measures, like protective covers for the tracks, that underline our commitment to excellence. Whether you’re a parent, student, or community member, this episode promises a detailed and inspiring exploration of how these enhancements are already making a lasting impact on the Franklin County community. Don’t miss out on this comprehensive update on the exciting developments in our district!
Welcome to FCS Unscripted. A new podcast for One Team, fcs, where we look at the stories behind everyone in Franklin County Schools. Thrilled to be here with you today. We are in September, we've started the school year, everything is going great, we're having a wonderful school year and today I'm very pleased to be joined by Jennifer Perkins, assistant Superintendent over District Services. She is also what we now call our Chief Operating Officer. Welcome, jennifer.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you.
Speaker 1:So we are going to talk all about facilities today, and if you have driven around Franklin County schools, if you've been by our high schools, you have noticed, most likely, a whole lot of construction going on.
Speaker 1:We've got a lot of different construction projects, a lot of facility upgrades that we're focusing on again with the intent on providing the most opportunities and the best facilities for our students. So we're very excited about these projects and we want to give everyone all of our listeners and everyone in the community kind of updates on where we are with these facilities. First of all, if you've been to our football fields, you most likely have noticed, obviously we've had turf fields for a few years now and just this past year we had new grandstands that were constructed. The reason that we went into the construction process for new grandstands was that so we could actually have enough seating capacity so that we can comfortably hold graduation at our football fields and also for all of our games. I mean we bring a lot of fans to our football games, our soccer games, and they have been filled both at graduation and at several of our games. So really excited about the grandstands. Jennifer, anything you want to say about the grandstands?
Speaker 2:No, it's just amazing. I remember when I sat my very first graduation at Western Hills and they didn't have the visitor side grandstands and then this past year I sat the graduation and they're full and I just was thinking to myself, where did everybody sit before? Because both sides were completely full and I did not even think that we were going to have that whole new section full, because it just seemed like we kind of made it work the year before. So it's been a delight to have enough seating for everyone.
Speaker 1:It's awesome, I agree, and the other change that you'll notice at the football fields is we have new LED lights at both of our high schools. Jennifer, why don't you kind of talk to us about the lighting?
Speaker 2:So I want to be first official to tell you all we had those lights before. The University of Kentucky had those lights. So we were, I think, the second high school in the state of Kentucky to get the lights. First they were installed at Western Hills and then followed by Franklin County. It's taken a little bit of extra time at Franklin County just due to the complexity of all of the electrical work that needed to be done over there. With it being an older facility, you expect some of those challenges to come up and happen. But as of the first official home football game kickoff this year, we had dancing colorful lights at Franklin County. So both schools have that now and they're just really cool and the kids really love them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's exciting when you see them in operation. You never knew that you really needed dancing lights, but the kids absolutely adore them and it adds a fun element to the game. And again, we're trying to give our kids the best At both football fields. We also have our two tracks and our tracks were recently resurfaced. Anything you want to add about that?
Speaker 2:We just have a long-term goal of eventually giving Franklin County a completely new track, but they did need to have it resurfaced at this time they don't have the standard number of lanes that would qualify for hosting state-level events. Western Hills does. So we do have a goal to push forward eventually to build them a new track, but in the meantime we did need to make the tracks safe and there were just there was a lot of wear on the tracks and some like divots and things like that in them, and so we had them completely resurfaced and then restriped at both locations. So they are looking very good right now and we're also being a little more proactive and preventative this time around. We've bought some covers to put over top of the tracks, because a lot of that wear was happening when you'd have cleats go across the tracks, and so we're really working to protect the tracks and make them live longer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when we do eventually build a new track over at Franklin County High School, it will be relocated to the area kind of behind the baseball field, if you know where that, you know where that area is. That's a that's a down the road project, but it is something that we're we're going to again, we're going to try to accomplish here as soon as we possibly can. Our tennis courts on both sides of town are we had to make some changes there. Kind of talk to us about what we did in terms of our tennis courts.
Speaker 2:So the tennis courts at Franklin County actually at both places have been in dire need of repair. We were able to resurface Franklin County's and it really looks good.
Speaker 1:They are beautiful.
Speaker 2:We used a blue and a gray on the coloring for that, and so those are finished and they're able to be used right now. For Western Hills, the location that we previously had the tennis courts in is where a future bond rent may lie, and so we didn't want to invest all of the money into building or redoing those tennis courts if in a few years we might be building a new bond rent. So we have relocated those tennis courts just in the same area, pretty much where the auxiliary gyms are in between Bondurant and Western Hills, just a little further down into the valley. There it's really where the middle school football team used to practice, if anybody needs to know that location. So we are currently under construction for the tennis courts. We hope to have them finished before cold weather sets in.
Speaker 1:Yes, and those will include, obviously, all brand-new courts, brand-new nets, all of that, but also brand-new lighting as well. Yes, yes, very excited about that. You mentioned the auxiliary gyms. Let's talk about those. They are under construction on both sides of town. They're pouring footers now as we speak. Let's kind of talk about some of the things that are going to be in those auxiliary gyms.
Speaker 2:So you might have to also add in Mr Kopp, because I feel like I might forget some things. But I know his favorite really is the golf simulator, so I'll go ahead and announce that one. First, there'll be a golf simulator room. There will also be a softball hitting facility, there will be a dance and cheer room, there's a wrestling room and then there's a whole nother gym in there that will have bleacher seating. I know that's been in the community questioned. I've seen on Facebook a little bit about whether there was going to be seating in there or not. There will be seating, but if you've been to one of our adjacent counties that has an auxiliary gym, the seating in auxiliary gyms is usually smaller than your regular gym because it's not meant to hold that additional capacity. So it will have bleachers, though it just won't be the amount of bleachers that we have in our current gyms. And then within that gym you also have the archery lines and nets that would be set up so that archery can also have an additional place to practice. Am I forgetting?
Speaker 1:anybody. Did you get wrestling I?
Speaker 2:got wrestling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you got them all then. In addition, each one of those auxiliary gyms will have a training space. So, for our athletes that need athletic training services, they'll have concession areas. So it's going to be a wonderful place where, finally, all of our sports will have an indoor place to practice, and so we couldn't be more excited about that. Speaking still about athletics, we have brand new video boards in each of our gymnasiums. There are two at Western Hills and there are two at Franklin County. Kind of talk to us about what those video boards are going to allow our kids to do.
Speaker 2:So the video boards allow for our kids. It's kind of a two-part thing. Yes, it does help out with our athletics and really promoting our athletic teams and things going on during the games, but it also will help us on the curriculum side. So our goal is to have the high school start to plan classes around the production of video boards and I think we have long-term not finalized but we're doing. We're in discussions right now with the Frankfort Plant Board and doing some collaboration with them and getting our students some real live experience on how to produce shows and then put them on the video boards.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if you've never seen the video boards in action, they are incredible. They're really going to highlight our kids and we'll kind of work to get the crowd excited and it's just going to be a wonderful, a wonderful addition to our two gyms. From a non-athletic perspective, we are also in the process of constructing two new greenhouses. Kind of talk to us about that process.
Speaker 2:So we are in construction of two new greenhouses. One of them is probably 95% near completion and that's the one at Western Hills, although the same company is installing them. So that's the reason why they're not on the same pace, because the company would prefer to go ahead and finish one before they move on to the other. The company would prefer to go ahead and finish one before they move on to the other. However, we're at the point of installing the HVAC system into the one at Western Hills. Once that's completed, then we should be at the point of moving that crew on over to Franklin County and starting there. So the greenhouse at Western Hills sits directly next to the current greenhouse. So they'll have two greenhouses, the same for Franklin County. They'll also have two, but theirs will be sitting in behind the current greenhouse, that's in between the CTC and Franklin County High School.
Speaker 1:Both of our agricultural programs are just so strong. At both of our high schools and also at the middle schools as well. Ag is such an important part of our curriculum and, man, our ag kids and our ag teachers do such an amazing job. We wanted to be able to expand what they were able to offer and now they're going to be able to really expand those services that they provide, and it's going to be awesome.
Speaker 1:Now, saving the best for last, we are building a brand new Elkhorn Elementary School. Now, just so you all know, we are in the design phase of this project. We have purchased the land. We should be getting ready to move dirt, hopefully in November. Just a couple of months down the road, We'll be having a groundbreaking sometime soon and the new Elkhorn Creek will sit on, or the new Elkhorn Elementary will sit on the Elkhorn Creek, which is really exciting. It's a piece of property over behind our current maintenance building off of Stedmontown Lane. It's about 17 and a half acres. Just a gorgeous piece of property. Kind of talk to us about the school itself and what we're looking at there in terms of the design.
Speaker 2:When we first started to design this school, we took some floor plans of two other schools that we have in the district, which are Collins Lane and Hearn, and then as a group we just kind of started to take some of the feedback from the teachers on things that they would like to see in the school, and then they just started to move around some of the parts, the rooms and things like that, and then all of a sudden it turned into what looks like an E for Elkhorn, which was just ironic, and so this school will have at least the plans are right now to go ahead and house all the east side preschools. So the students who are currently going to ELV as preschoolers will then transition to that new facility which is being built specifically to house preschoolers. So that's the fun thing there. It will have a multi-purpose room for indoor play for preschoolers, things like that. There will be two playgrounds.
Speaker 2:And also just thinking because I know some of you might have panicked when you heard Mr Kopp say like it's sitting right on the Elkhorn Creek it is on the Elkhorn Creek, it's overlooking Elkhorn Creek, it's on a big cliff. But we also have taken some pretty good precautions into place about safety of students. So we are going to double fence the backside of it and you know, I think it's just a gorgeous view over there and the students are going to just have the state of the art kind of building and the students are going to just have the state-of-the-art kind of building media center, your normal things like that but they will also have the most up-to-date technology when it comes time to plan for all of that. But we're really excited to have this progress start.
Speaker 1:It's going to be built for 600 students. Then that number does not include preschool, so 600 students in a K five setting and then an entire separate preschool wing. It's going to have a full-size gymnasium with a wooden floor, the same that we did for Collins Lane Elementary. It's just going to be a beautiful addition to our community. We are, as I said, starting to move dirt, hopefully in November. The process of building a school does take a little bit of time, but we are pushing to be able to open our new Elkhorn Elementary in August of 2026. So less than two years from now, and that's an aggressive timeframe, but I think we can meet it. I agree. So lots of great things going on, obviously from a facilities perspective. Did we forget anything, Jennifer? I think we've.
Speaker 2:I think we've got it.
Speaker 1:I think we got it. There's a lot. So, folks, we appreciate you so much. We wanted to share a quick facilities update. As always, thank you for everything you do for our district and for our kiddos. We are committed to making sure that every student succeeds. Have a great day, everyone. Well, that wraps it up for this week's episode of FCS Unscripted. Thank you for listening in and I encourage you to subscribe and follow this weekly podcast, where we will share updates, information and interviews with hashtag everyone the wonderful students and staff who make up One Team, FCS. Have a great week everybody.