Three Lawrence school board members — a lawyer-turned-publisher, a retired physics professor and a homemaker educated in Catholic schools — soon will go their separate ways.

The shared experience of board membership for Scott Morgan, Jack Davidson and Mary Loveland ends at midnight June 30.

Each was involved in making hundreds of decisions intertwined with two emotional issues — children and money. They weren’t paid a dime for years of late-night education policy meetings or for enduring savage criticism from folks unhappy with their views.

“People are pretty well convinced you’re either an idiot or evil,” said Morgan, who capped his term with a year as board president.

Davidson didn’t seek re-election, frustrated by serving in a district dominated by administrators he called “technocrats.” Voters decided April 1 to reject Morgan’s bid for a second term. Voters also denied Loveland a fifth term.

The trio’s pending withdrawal from the limelight offered each an opportunity to speak about public education in Lawrence.

‘Slime mold’ ethics

Morgan said he was immediately labeled the board’s troublemaker by administrators and board colleagues after he took office in 1999.

District staff complained about his body language, which he actually apologized for in public. Board member James Hilliard said at a meeting that Morgan had the ethics of a “slime mold,” which is a nasty-looking growth that appears in summer on mulched flower beds.

¢6News video: School board says farewell to three members¢Davidson opts out of board race (1-11-03)¢Morgan running for re-election (1-06-03)¢6News video: Scott Morgan – School Board profile (2-15-03)¢Morgan takes hard-nosed stand supporting bond issue (2-14-03)¢Morgan sees bond issue as chance to control change (3-25-03)¢Loveland to run for fifth term on Lawrence’s school board (1-08-03)¢Loveland says school finance more complex than public realizes (2-12-03¢6News video: School board candidate Mary Loveland (2-13-03)¢Loveland sees woes through lens of experience (3-223-03)

Morgan, who has three children in Lawrence public schools, said criticism aimed at him had much to do with people being uncomfortable with a forceful, dissenting voice.

“I had a purpose to serve,” he said. “That was to be very straightforward, very direct and give an honest assessment of some pretty basic needs the district had.”

In 2000, Morgan was the only board member to vote against offering then-Supt. Kathleen Williams a contract extension. It was the hardest decision of his term, he said, “just because of the pressure not to do that.”

Williams resigned, clearing the way for Randy Weseman to take her place.

“I think changing superintendents is one of the most important things we did,” said Morgan, a lawyer by training who runs an east Lawrence publishing company.

As time wore on, his position on key issues merged with the majority.

Morgan said his proudest moments were votes to close Grant, Riverside, Centennial and East Heights elementary schools.

“If that cost me the election, it was an easy price to pay. Not because I revel in closing things, but because that was so long overdue. The kids will be so much better served.”

Morgan said one of his lasting contributions was to elevate community appreciation for the value of small classes rather than small schools.

He said he had no regrets — not even April’s failed $59 million bond issue — after four years in office. He said he expected some people would dislike him for decades because of votes he had cast.

“This community likes to eat its public officials,” he said.

Morgan said he initially was disappointed to narrowly lose his re-election campaign. But a couple of months of hindsight left him feeling grateful voters showed him the door.

“I feel I’ve run an incredibly long race, and I’m beat.”

Morgan had this message for parents: “It’s their job to discipline children. It’s their job to get their kids to school. It’s their job to get their kids to do their homework.”

Technocrats at helm

There’s a profound gap between Davidson’s vision of how the school district should function and how he believes it really works.

Davidson, a former Kansas University physics and astronomy professor who took a seat on the board in 1999, said Lawrence residents didn’t have control of the public schools.

Of course, voters elect the seven-member board. People assume that’s where power rests.

But real leverage is in the hands of administrators who climb the ranks by adhering to the perspective of the person in the superintendent’s office, Davidson said.

“What we have is a system in which we elect a representative group to supervise, and what we end up with is a system of technocrats who actually run things.”

He offered as evidence voter defeat of the proposed $59 million bond issue for school construction. Fifty-five percent of people casting ballots were thumbs-down on that plan, Davidson said, because it was too expensive and designed to shut down elementary schools in older parts of the city.

“The bond wasn’t what the community wanted,” said Davidson, the only board member to oppose the bond and consolidation.

The painful fact, he said, is that a majority of the board and central administration pressed ahead to close East Heights, Centennial and Riverside in May.

“The administration’s attitude is: ‘The public be damned.’ What that really said was that we were incompetent. I’m very cynical about the process. There is a disconnect between the people and the administration.”

Davidson said he had a more charitable view than Morgan of departed Supt. Williams. She climbed the education ladder in Illinois and wasn’t a product of Lawrence school district culture, he said.

“She wanted to do some things and she brought some ideas from the outside,” he said. “I don’t think she would have gone for school closures.”

Davidson said the strengths of Lawrence public schools were a remnant of better economic times, when the district had money to hire more counselors and nurses and to expand rather than cut curriculum in kindergarten through high school.

Finding positives from his term on the board is difficult, Davidson said.

“Three years in a row, what you were doing was cutting budgets and having to drop programs, cut schools and cut teachers.”

If a magic wand was thrust into his hand, Davidson said he would end grade inflation: “How do you end up with more than 20 valedictorians?”

Dog, kids, gardening

If Loveland could delve into a discussion of education while weaving in a tale about her dogs, children or gardens, she’d do it.

No one in board history spoke as frequently about those topics, and for good reason. Loveland served four terms in 16 years — a record for longevity unmatched in Lawrence district history.

That’s more than 300 board meetings.

“I hope that I’ve operated with the attitude that I don’t know all the answers, but work to find them,” she said. “I tried.”

Loveland, who had a front-row seat while her four children went through Lawrence schools, said her ability to survive four elections was unexpected.

“I’m not much of a politician,” she said. “In this community, you’ve served on the board this long, you’ve pissed off everybody at least once. That’s a fact.”

Loveland said she was concerned about the board being taken over by one-issue candidates who ran simply to oppose a bond issue or to fight to save schools. For similar reasons, she opposes dividing Lawrence into political districts for board elections.

“I don’t want people who are only interested in parochial, local interests,” she said. “You’ve got to see the picture as a whole.”

Technology, demands for accountability and shortage of money changed public education since Loveland was elected in 1987, a year in which Ronald Reagan ruled the White House and the movie “Dirty Dancing” was a hit.

“But we’re after the same outcome,” Loveland said. “The production of the next generation of citizens, that’s what we’re about.”

She said her primary regret was not having the capacity to convince district voters when change was necessary. Failure of the $59 million bond in April had as much to do with sticker shock as it did with a persuasive anti-bond campaign that was flush with distortions, she said.

Loveland said many people were led to believe defeating the bond would keep all elementary schools open.

“There were political activists in the community who were spreading a lot of misinformation. That’s on their conscience, not mine.”

Loveland, a fervent advocate of consolidating schools so each has at least two classes at each grade level, said people who believed children from low-income families couldn’t excel in larger schools were selling those kids short.

“They have concluded that somehow or other poor kids can’t do as well,” she said.

Loveland said if given the chance to snap her fingers and produce reform, she would move ninth-grade students out of junior high schools and into the high schools.

“There will come a time people need to understand it’s compromising the education of ninth-graders because they are high school freshmen.”