To the editor:

When I served on the Lawrence school board (2003-07), our dedication to improving staff salaries was evident. Little by little, we made progress toward “catching up” with surrounding districts by increasing the teacher compensation package by 3.51 percent (2003), 1.66 percent (2004), 7.61 percent (2005) and 8.09 percent (2006). We’re still losing some great teachers, especially to Johnson County. Clearly. Providing competitive salaries is an ongoing, and challenging, effort for the school board.

An endeavor that perhaps didn’t get as much attention during that time was the school board’s commitment to what teachers and parents told us they valued as a high priority: class-size reduction. Gone now are the combination-grade classrooms of the past in which our teachers were responsible for teaching two grade levels of curriculum simultaneously. Today you’ll find in Lawrence several elementary class sizes in the teens, while most fall in the low-to-mid 20s.

School districts across the country have balanced their budget woes by letting class sizes balloon. Our school board has listened to its teaching professionals and the wishes of parents and shunned that quick fix. It has instead made the tough budgetary decisions necessary to allocate scarce resources to these worthy educational priorities.

For our kids’ sake, school board members must stick to their commitment to paying teachers a fair wage and maintaining reasonable class sizes. The school board’s local-option budget election on April 1 is this community’s chance to help them do just that. Please support this increase by voting “yes” on April 1.

Cindy Yulich,

Lawrence