Rich Minder says architects of the largest bond proposal in Lawrence school district history glibly ignored social implications of their plan.

How else do you explain the school board’s 6-1 decision to push a bond that eliminates two small elementary schools full of low-income, at-risk children and pours $12.8 million into expansion projects at nine elementary schools?

“This is the wrong bond issue at the wrong time,” said Minder, who is among 13 school board candidates. “All in all, this is a board that means well, but has not adequately addressed core educational issues in this community.”

Minder, 44, works for the Success By 6 Coalition of Douglas County, which strives to prepare children to do well in school.

He moved to Lawrence three years ago when his wife, Vicki Penner, became pastor of Peace Mennonite Church. Their two children are in a preschool program at New York School.

When it became clear the board would ask voters April 1 to adopt a $59 million bond and bless consolidation, Minder decided that linking the bond with school closures was “dangerous to the community.”

He decided it had to be stopped, and filed for the race.

“I think that we owe all the children of Lawrence a sustained commitment to the best education possible within a context of strong neighborhood schools,” Minder said. “That perspective of how schools fit into the community and into neighborhoods is one I feel is sorely lacking on the school board.”

The board wants to spend more than $45 million from the bond upgrading secondary schools, including $21 million to replace South Junior High School. That’s a project Minder supports.

However, Minder said it didn’t make sense to close East Heights and move those students to an expanded New York School nor to shut down Centennial and transfer those children to an enlarged Cordley School. These expansion projects would cost $7.9 million.

He said a majority of board members must not understand how damaging it can be to thrust children with complex emotional and academic needs into much larger schools.

“If we are having a difficult time educating some students at 150 students in the school, I’m not sure that increasing the number of students in a school to 350 is going to help us educate those students any better,” he said.

Minder may be the candidate with the strongest neighborhood-building credentials.

He’s co-founder and current treasurer of Delaware Street Commons, a Lawrence residential development that eventually will contain 28 homes. People living there own self-contained homes, but families are connected by sharing communal facilities.

Minder said his master’s degree in urban planning and design from the University of Pittsburgh would come in handy.

¢More election stories, voting information and links to download a voter registration form and an application for an advanced ballot

“I bring a planning and urban design perspective to the board … to give that promise of neighborhood community-based schools to our children,” he said.

He also has a degree from Culinary Institute of America. Maybe he’ll improve school menus.

Minder said he had become convinced that the district’s high-priced facility consultant, DLR Group of Overland Park, did the district a disservice by cooking up a bond plan doomed to failure.

His loathing of DLR Group’s effort doesn’t mean the district should abandon efforts to get voter consent for school building improvements.

“I’m certainly not opposed to a well-considered bond issue at the proper time,” he said.

Minder said the district’s stumble on this bond package might reflect a lack of diversity on the board. Its members have remarkably similar backgrounds and orientations, he said.

The board lacks a clear vision for the district, he said.

“I sense that the board is haggard and in disarray without much direction or sense of priorities to help ground difficult decisions,” he said.

Minder wants the district to stick with precise objectives in basic academic areas. For example, he said, all children in the district should read well by third grade.

The district can reduce wasteful spending by halting the use of certified teachers as study hall monitors and eliminate duplicated courses with small enrollments, Minder said.

The district’s management team also needs to be thinned out.

“Every administrative position needs to be justified and rejustified,” he said.