Morgan files for school board / LJWorld.com

Scott E. Morgan is ready to return to the Lawrence school board. He filed for one of four seats open on the seven-member board. The election will be April 3.

Morgan, 49, filed with about 35 minutes to spare before today's noon deadline.

"I've been thinking about this off and on and been thinking if I can make it work with my business. I think I can," he said.

Morgan operates Morgan Quitno Corp., a publisher of state and city statistical reference books.

He served on the school board from 1999 to 2003 when he lost his bid for a second four-year term by 66 votes, coming in fifth place among eight candidates.

He is the eighth candidate to file for the race. The other candidates are incumbent Rich Minder, Marlene Merrill, Victor Sisk, Robert Rauktis, Michael Machell, Michael Pomes and former school board member Mary Loveland.

motomom 10 years, 8 months ago

loveland? morgan???

bye bye wakarusa school.

remember folks, these two like closing down little schools.

conservative 10 years, 8 months ago

Good to know motoman, they'll definitely get my vote because of that. little schools still have all the overhead costs of principals etc that large schools do but only service a few students.

Frankly we should go to a system of having 8 elementary schools feeding into the 4 junior highs, that feed into the 2 high schools. The number of bureaucrats that would lose their jobs as a matter of this type of alignment is a plight I can live with.

deec,

boo hoo, your family made a choice to move you constantly. Some families decide to make the choice to stay in one location and give their kids some stability. In fact that is most of the reason why I stay in this messed up city. If it wasn't for wanting the kids to maintain friendships and stay close to family I could easily move to a different job in a different city.

kugrad 10 years, 8 months ago

Can you live with the tax increase to build the feeder elementaries capable of handling at least 500 students each? I can't.

Compared to the maintenance costs and staff support for the current ones, darn right I could. Obviously it wouldn't happen all at once, but it is truly a process that should be looked at as we build new schools and replace existing ones.

Nikki May 10 years, 8 months ago

We have 16 grade schools now and you want 8? Wow. Where would you locate those?

draw up a map of population in lawrence and place them so that they are spread out relative to the population so there is the least amount of commuting necessary. Also the districts need to be drawn up so that if a child grows up in the same house all the way through school that they remain with the same group of friends from K - 12. Right now you run into situations like people who live North of Petersen road. They go to deerfield with friends from k - 6, then they go to Central junior high while most of their friends south of Petersen move on to West Junior high. Then when they move on to High school they all end up at Free State. Disctricts should be drawn that keep the same children together all the way through.

deec 10 years, 8 months ago

Oh boo hoo. The kids have to go to different schools than their friends from elementary and junior high. I grew up in a military family, and went to 6 different school districts in 6 different cities in 3 different states. Most military kids go to even more than that.

Uh, military families have NO choice about where they are deployed. So these spoiled west side kids have to adjust to different schools a couple of times. I guess that means they are not allowed to play with the kids from their neighborhoods when they are not in school, summer vacation, weekends, etc.

Kathy Gates 10 years, 8 months ago

Deec--since when was this a thread about your belief that west side kids are spoiled? I really get tired of people assuming anyone who lives west of Iowa is filthy rich.

deec, but your family made the choice to be a military family. (and for the record I'm grateful that so many do make that choice).

deec 10 years, 7 months ago

Dad decided to be a 20 year military man. The rest of us just had to go along.

I see no response to my point regarding kids still having contact with their friends outside of school.

conservative 10 years, 7 months ago

of course they can still play with the other kids, but it does make it more difficult to build and maintain strong friendships when you attend different schools.

Do you have a problem with the idea of wanting an entire grade school to feed into a single middle school? Not saying it can't work the way it currently is structured(obviously many families have to make it work), but if you're looking for a future state why not look for one that doesn't arbitrarily impact families in this way?

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Archive for Tuesday, January 23, 2007