Bottom Line

On the eve of Tuesday’s election on a $59 million bond, the board will examine options for merging East Heights and New York schools as well as Centennial and Cordley schools.

The school board requested two plans.

One scenario assumes the bond passes and New York and Cordley are renovated with bond money to accept students when East Heights and Centennial are closed.

The second scenario outlines how consolidation of East Heights and Centennial would be handled if the bond failed.

The information will be presented by Mary Rodriguez, executive director of human resources, Tom Bracciano, director of facilities, and Kathy Johnson, budget director.

Background

If the bond passed, New York would be temporarily shut down for construction. All New York and East Heights students would go to East Heights, but move to New York when work was finished in a couple years.

If the bond passed, Cordley’s students would be separated for construction. Gaslight Village students at Cordley would go to Broken Arrow. Marvonne and Melholland students at Centennial would go to Schwegler. All other Cordley students would go to Centennial.

Under the second scenario, the bond fails and East Heights and Centennial close in May. East Heights students south of 15th Street go to Kennedy and those north of 15th Street would be at New York.

Elsewhere, Gaslight Village students at Cordley and Centennial would transfer to Broken Arrow. Marvonne and Melholland students at Centennial would go to Schwegler. All other Centennial students would move to Cordley.

Other business

The agenda:

• Recognize the efforts of Citizens for Students organizers Jackie Ferguson and Rosy Elmore. The group raised $85,000 to offset the cost of new student fees.
• Receive comments from Scott Morgan, board president; Randy Weseman, superintendent; and board members.
• Consider a $250,000 contract with Lawrence Partnership for Children and Youth for the SuccessBy6 program. The money would come from a federal grant for the Safe Schools Healthy Students program.
• Consider a $200,800 contract with Kansas University to evaluate the district’s Safe Schools Healthy Students program. Funding would be taken from a federal grant.
• Consider revised professional development handbooks for the district.
• Consider a $14,419 contract with Wenger Corp. of Owatonna, Minn., for a new music library system for Lawrence High School.
• Consider a $18,741 contract with Laird Noller Automotive of Lawrence for a 2003 truck for the facilities and operations department. It will be used to transport equipment and mowers and to plow snow.
• Consider on final action a policy for supervision of medications in schools.
• Consider on first reading policies on enrollment, duties of the superintendent, recruitment of a superintendent and board-superintendent relations.
• Review options for construction or consolidation of New York, East Heights, Centennial and Cordley schools.
• Discuss development of the 2003-2004 budget.