Playspace Fund - Knoxville Education Foundation

Our Initiatives

KEF has created a private-public fund to help reverse three decades of challenges for our public schools and reinforce the importance of play for our students. This innovative funding solution will support playspaces across Knox County Schools.

Click here to read our press release

Partnership to Sustain Change

The Playspace Fund will add new play structures and meet updated ADA requirements for inclusive play. Through a new partnership with Knox County Schools (KCS), the approach for funding and maintaining school playspaces is changing. KCS has designated a full-time position to manage playspaces and increased the maintenance fund to assist schools with the upkeep of play structures. Moving forward all new schools will include a playground.

Why Does Play Matter?

Playgrounds provide opportunities for physical activity, coordination, balance, strength, and are essential for maintaining good health.

Playgrounds increase the development of emotional intelligence and allow children to interact with their peers, creating strong skills in communication, cooperation, negotiation, and conflict resolution.

Play encourages creativity and imagination, allowing children to explore new ideas, scenarios, and roles. This fosters the development of creative thinking, innovation, the ability to see things from different perspectives, as well as opportunities for children to learn more about themselves through various play experiences and exploration.

Exposure to nature and outdoor play have been associated with effective learning in the classroom by improved attention, reduced stress, and enhanced cognitive function, all of which contribute to a positive classroom learning experience. Activities such as climbing, balancing, and navigating obstacle courses help enhance a child's problem-solving skills, spatial awareness, and decision-making abilities.

FAQs

General

The Playspace Fund was established by Knox Education Foundation through a combination of public and private funding to address inconsistencies in play spaces across Knox County Schools (KCS). The creation of this fund provides for a standard quality of play spaces throughout the district. Knox Education Foundation has worked with the KCS playground team to identify a standard for school playgrounds, taking into account factors such as school size and student population (K-5, preschool, etc.), ADA needs, and available playground space. Leveraging a combination of public and private contributions, the Playspace Fund seeks to reduce the burden of individual school play space funding while ensuring that play spaces throughout KCS meet the standard for each school.

All playgrounds are inspected regularly by a Knox County School’s employee who is a Certified Playground inspector. Using these routine playground inspections, KCS generated a list of schools in need of full playground replacements to meet the standard for schools of their size and student population (K-5, preschool, etc.).

These schools were deemed the highest-need schools in the district and designated for Phase 1 support from the Playspace Fund.

Standard play structures have been chosen that meet the needs of the student enrollment, site location and varies opportunities for play engagement. Because each site location for the play space is different, each school requires different site prep and additions to make the area ADA compliant. These factors, along with freight cost and installation cost impact the total cost for each school project.

Group picture at Playspace launch announcement

Renderings of Phase 1

Renderings of Phase 1

Scholarships

Click the button below for full details about project GRAD scholarships.

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