The Lawrence school board is working to address shortcomings of state-mandated site councils at district schools.

Representatives of these Lawrence school advisory groups met recently and concluded site councils in the district suffer from lack of opportunities to share insights about improving the quality of education in schools.

“We need to have a better way to communicate what each council is doing,” said Sandee Crowther, the district’s executive director of planning and program improvement.

Crowther said members of the district’s site councils indicated at a meeting that effectiveness of the groups varied from school to school.

“All know they can improve in some way,” she said. “The majority think they’re working very effectively.”

In 1992, the Kansas Legislature enacted a statute requiring all public schools in Kansas to establish site councils composed of the principal, teachers, parents and representatives of businesses and community groups. Each council consists of six to 12 members. Councils are expected to represent the demography of the school being served.

The basic assignment for each site council is to provide input on opportunities for improving student achievement in that school, said Tom Krebs, development specialist with the Kansas Association of School Boards.

He said it wasn’t uncommon for site councils to feel disconnected from peers at other schools in a district. Inconsistent performance of site councils also is frequent, he said.

However, he said, the Lawrence site councils generally have solid parent involvement. That can’t be said for site councils across the state, he said. In some districts, the school principal winds up leading the site council, and teachers are the only people who come to site council meetings.

“What you end up with is kind of a bizarro world of site councils,” Krebs said. “It’s everything it’s not supposed to be. There is no parent involvement. The principal is running it. That wasn’t the intent of the law.”

Improving feedback

Holli Joyce, co-chairwoman of the Pinckney School site council, said better communication about school-improvement projects would benefit site councils in the Lawrence district.

Something as simple as setting up a Web site to share achievements or disappointments of parents, teachers and administrators on site councils would be helpful, she said.

“This would encourage the networking I have been touting for years,” she said.

The district is exploring ways of placing site council minutes or project information on a Web site accessible by school board members and the public.

Board member Sue Morgan said the district’s site councils might be able to assist the school board in another way. Demise of two parent advisory groups left a void in the district that hasn’t been filled. It’s possible site council representatives could help bridge the gap between the school board and parents, she said.

“I’m just interested in talking about that,” Morgan said.

Joyce said an annual summit of site council representatives would be beneficial.

“A kind of superintendent’s round table to meet, perhaps, yearly to make some building determinations, goal setting and, again, foster the networking idea,” she said.

Student safety success

Currently, the district’s site councils tackle the goal of improving schools in different ways.

Nancy Scott, chairwoman of the Sunflower School site council, said the group was concentrating on student safety.

“The past two years the site council goal for the year has been safety,” she said.

Through a collaboration with city officials, she said, there is a new pedestrian-refuge island on 27th Street, pedestrian signage at the roundabout on Inverness Drive as well as school speed-zone signs on 27th Street and Inverness Drive.

John Mitchell, co-chairman of the Quail Run School site council, said the group last year focused on learning about the district’s financial problems and this year was studying federal mandates of No Child Left Behind.

Quail Run’s site council also started a partnership with counterparts at New York School that is unique in the district, he said.

“We have a member of our site council attend their New York site council meetings and one of their members attends ours,” Mitchell said. “Communication always helps.”