Supt. Randy Weseman promised Wednesday that the Lawrence public school district would improve next year.

“We can do better,” he told dozens of teachers and patrons meeting to discuss strategic planning in the district. “Public education for me is a mission. I know what it does for kids.”

Weseman said the improvement process required big-picture thinking about curriculum, assessment, personnel, student services and technology. He broke people into five groups and had each attend 20-minute briefings on those topics.

In attendance were representatives of school site councils and the nonprofit Lawrence Schools Foundation and Lawrence Business-Education Partnership.

At the meeting, district administrators outlined efforts to increase academic achievement in 2002-2003.

A goal this year is to jump-start math instruction from kindergarten through eighth grade.

“We let math go by the wayside a little bit more than we should,” said Tom Christie, executive director of curriculum.

Now, for the first time, math instruction will be aligned from grade-to-grade with new textbooks. Teachers will undergo training to make the best use of the new materials, Christie said.

He said staff would benefit from new curriculum maps that show what is expected of students at each grade in each subject.

“We’re looking for more consistency districtwide,” Christie said.

Doug Eicher, the district’s executive director of special services, said there had been preliminary discussions about centralizing preschool programs. In the fall, there will be six preschool classrooms in the district.

Eicher said another idea in the talking stage was refinement of gifted education. Perhaps teachers could work 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. to permit after-school gifted instruction.

“It may not make teachers happy, but it’s a new way of extending learning opportunities,” Eicher said.

Mary Rodriguez, executive director of human resources, said the district was bolstering teacher recruitment. Even in a year with layoffs, the district has vacancies in hard-to-fill jobs because of resignations.

“I will never stop recruiting,” she said, “because we want the best and brightest to choose from.”