New courses planned

Lawrence school board members Monday night unanimously approved changes to the secondary-school curriculum, including adding courses in conjunction with Johnson County Community College to be taught in Lawrence.

The changes will take effect during the 2008-2009 school year, although JCCC will offer some adult-education courses in Lawrence this spring.

Two classes, Exploration of Health Careers I and II, will be taught at the JCCC Lawrence campus at Centennial School, which is also home to the Lawrence Virtual School. Students will pay tuition to JCCC and can jointly enroll in other medical-related courses, and they will meet once a weekfor additional curricula.

Other new courses include Chinese II, to be taught in conjunction with the Confucius Institute at Kansas University, and a “P.E. Plus!” class for eighth and ninth grades and “Health 9” in ninth grade.

Construction update

Both the main gymnasium at the new South Junior High School and the parking lot for South and Broken Arrow School are scheduled to be finished Nov. 30.

Board members received an update on the $31 million construction project at the campus in the 2700 block of Louisiana Street from Lee Fuller, construction manager for DLR Group.

The work is part of a $54 million bond project that voters approved in 2005, which is about $1.5 million under budget.

Work at South and Broken Arrow, which began in August 2006, has been plagued by weather delays, district and construction leaders have said. At the new South, all classrooms were occupied Oct. 31, and the auxiliary gym was open for practice last week.

The new track still needs a synthetic surface, and Fuller said it was likely the surface could not be installed until the warmer nights in the spring. Broken Arrow’s addition is scheduled to be completed by Nov. 29.

Projectors approved

Board members unanimously approved spending $230,000 to buy 130 LCD projectors and mounting brackets.

Funding will come from the 2005 bond issue, which allocated some money for technology in addition to the major construction projects at the junior high schools and Broken Arrow.

Board members approved funding months ahead of schedule for the 130 new projectors because Hitachi is replacing the current model. Acting now would save about $200 per projector, said Michel Eltschinger, the district’s technology director.

It is part of the effort to have presentation systems in every classroom, and staff members already have installed hundreds of projectors the district has already bought.

“We have learned that one of the greatest things we did through the bond issue was the technology piece,” school board President Linda Robinson said.