School closings. Salary strife. Slashed programs.

It’s been a tough few years for Lawrence public schools. But there is new optimism among teachers and school officials following the Kansas Supreme Court’s ruling forcing the legislature to pump an additional $285 million into education.

“I think people are excited to see that someone is valuing education,” said Sam Rabiola, a Free State High teacher and president of the Lawrence Education Assn.

The district’s budget crunch began about five years ago. Since then, the district has cut everything from staff positions to extracurricular activities.

“We tried to become more efficient in every way we could,” school board member Sue Morgan said. “There was probably not an area that went untouched.”

The district eliminated its full-day kindergarten program that once was in elementary schools with at-risk students. It trimmed administrative staff, guidance counselors, school nurses, library staff and teaching positions. The district used to have at least two assistant superintendents. Now it has none.

The district also cut funds for fine arts materials, curriculum supplies, library books and other items. It trimmed athletics programs. And it passed costs on to families and students. Kids now pay to ride the school bus, to play sports and activities, and to rent textbooks.

The district closed Centennial, Riverside and East Heights schools. But the closings were not only about cost savings, several board members said.

“The smaller schools were more expensive to operate and the students had fewer services,” school board member Leni Salkind said. “It wasn’t the best thing for students to be in such small environments.”

The court’s ruling means the Lawrence district could receive from $4 million to $5 million more for the 2005-06 school year, though district officials have yet to receive final figures.

A high priority is salaries, several board members said. And many teachers agree.

“Salary has to be a top priority,” Rabiola said. “We’ve lost 85 staff members already this year, and I can imagine that number is going to go up over the summer as it normally does.”

Mary Rodriguez, the district’s human resources director, said some teachers were leaving because of salaries, but the figures also were the result of a greater number of people reaching retirement age and retiring from the district.

The district has made the cuts in recent years in order to increase salaries, Salkind said.

“Everything that we cut back, we cut back in order to give teachers a decent raise,” she said.

But in the last school year, the board didn’t make any more cuts, and teachers didn’t receive raises. They simply were able to move up the salary scale.

For Sue Neverve, a Lawrence High School teacher, that meant $125, a small sum compared to other professions, she said.

Neverve said she hoped school districts would look to the future and what they will need to do to recruit and retain teachers.

Paula Hatcher, a nurse at Free State High, said she hoped to see a nurse assigned in every school. She said many nurses must cover two schools.

“It’s just difficult,” she said. “They can’t handle that type of caseload.”

The district will have draws besides salaries on its new revenue, if it comes.

“We’re not going to be able to take every dollar that comes from the state and turn that into teacher salaries,” Salkind said.

She said the district, for example, needed to hire computer technicians to work with the computers coming through the technology bond issue.