Brent Garner says the Lawrence school board left the moral high ground when it decided to ram elementary school consolidation down the city’s throat.

Garner, one of 13 candidates for Lawrence school board, said consolidation should have been settled in the 1990s when repeated efforts to shut down schools were shelved amid intense public criticism. Return of the school closing debate is disturbing, he said.

“There is a moral problem here,” he said.

Garner, a 47-year-old insurance salesman, said children at crowded elementary schools in west Lawrence should be bused to underutilized schools on the east side of town before anybody talks about mothballing schools.

The board’s insistence that Riverside, East Heights and Centennial schools be shut down wasn’t the only issue that convinced Garner to enter the race.

He said there appeared to be something “sinister” in development by the school board and an Overland Park consulting firm of the proposed $59 million bond issue for school construction.

He said the consultants, DLR Group of Overland Park, weren’t selected through competitive bidding. The ongoing effort by the district and DLR to sign up Lawrence architecture firms to work on bond projects, even though no public vote has taken place, smells like “vote buying with public money,” Garner said.

“Maybe there is something a little more sinister going on here,” he added.

The bond will be on the April 1 general election ballot.

Garner said DLR’s compensation from the district is too generous. The board should buy DLR out of its contract and start the facility planning process over, he said.

While opposed to this bond package, Garner said he supports some projects contained in the proposal, including replacement of South Junior High School. He also approves of bringing district buildings into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

His angst about school affairs extends to other financial matters.

The board’s decision last year to impose $3.1 million in budget cuts and fee increases was a mistake, Garner said. The board ripped services away from special-education students at the same time more district administrators were added to the payroll, he said.

Across-the-board budget cuts are more fair and equitable way of reducing spending, he said.

A portion of Garner’s venom was directed at the district’s special-education programs. He is the father of a child with disabilities.

“We are dumbfounded by the almost universally adversarial attitude by district senior management towards students with disabilities,” he said. “They don’t think students with special needs are worth educating.”

In the classrooms of Lawrence schools, Garner said the district’s track record on standardized exams was unsettling.

“What we are in essence doing is turning out reading and mathematically illiterate individuals,” he said.

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He is an advocate of phonics, a method of reading instruction.

Garner moved to Lawrence in 1988 to teach Air Force ROTC courses at Kansas University. Of his six children, ages 10 to 21, three still attend Lawrence schools. One is at Centennial School, another attends West Junior High School and a third is at Free State High School.

Garner is among two of the 13 candidates prosecuted for criminal offenses in Douglas County District Court. He served five days in jail after pleading no contest to charges he illegally detained four juveniles involved in a 1996 school-yard fight with his children.

“Frankly, it was a miscarriage of justice,” he said.

Garner’s insurance company settled a civil lawsuit stemming from the incident for $15,000 in 1997. The suit was “frivolous,” he said.

The criminal record in the case was sealed in 2001, but the civil suit file remains public record.

The primary election is Feb. 25, and voter registration for the primary ends Feb. 10. The general election is April Fool’s Day.