Lydia Leon envisions a day when one of Lawrence’s elementary schools could convert to a dual-language magnet school.

The goal would to be to split the school among primarily English- and Spanish-speaking children from across Lawrence.

“In addition to that core goal that we have for all kids in all of our schools, the kids would be achieving a high level of proficiency in both English and Spanish,” said Leon, a former director of the Centro Hispano Resource Center.

Leon is with a Lawrence group, including parents and some teachers, that has been studying the concept for 18 months — before state budget cuts forced the school district to discuss closing elementary schools for savings earlier this year.

Board members in March approved $4.6 million in budget cuts without closing any current kindergarten through sixth-grade schools, but the district will appoint a task force to study its elementary facilities in the next year.

Scott Morgan, the school board president, said the magnet school concept is worth considering. In board meetings he has even mentioned New York School, 936 N.Y., as a candidate.

But Leon said the group plans for the dual-language school to only be in an existing public elementary school. The group hasn’t identified which school.

School assessments

Morgan said creating a magnet school in one of the district’s smaller schools could be advantageous because it could boost enrollment from across the district with those applying to attend.

A dual-language school would also mean some students could get exposure to a foreign language at a young age, instead of only in secondary school, he said.

Morgan said the district’s task force would need to examine the proposal and “see if that makes sense with the way we’ve got our elementary schools structured.”

Roughly half of the Lawrence district’s elementary students attend 10 older, smaller schools and the other half go to five newer, larger ones.

“We just need to have some thought about what we’re doing and have a plan as a community,” Morgan said. “About the only time we tend to talk about it is when we’re in a budget crisis.”

Save Our Neighborhood Schools, a coalition that lobbied against closing elementary schools, on Friday released its recommendation for the charge and makeup of the task force.

The group said the task force should consider: preserving neighborhood schools; establishing a more clear feeder path for students from elementary to high school; increasing teaching of foreign languages in elementary schools; creating magnet or charter schools; and allowing elementary schools to develop varying missions, like a focus on subjects like science and technology or environmental issues in addition to the standard curriculum.

Save Our Neighborhood Schools, or SONS, proposes the task force be made up of one nominee from each elementary school, plus one each from the district administration, Douglas County Commission, Lawrence City Commission, Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods, Kansas University, the Lawrence Education Association, the district’s equity council, the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Lawrence Inc., the Lawrence Sustainability Advisory Board and the Retired Teachers Association. SONS also would like a parent of an English language learner on the task force, as well as selecting one nominee itself.

Morgan said board members hope to discuss the makeup of the task force later this month.

Beyond facilities

Once the task force is appointed, its members will have many things to discuss, including a backlog of repairs at the district’s elementary schools. Morgan said the district could float another bond issue in the next couple years to upgrade elementary facilities. He said that in one to two years the district will have paid off a significant amount of debt from the recent $54 million bond issue that mostly upgraded the junior high and high schools, meaning the district’s bond and interest mill levy could stay at its current level.

Dana Lattin, a Hillcrest School parent, said parents and students at the school could have an interest in the magnet school concept if the idea was right. Hillcrest has a heritage of serving international families with a connection to Kansas University.

Lattin also said some parents still have several questions about how the district’s elementary task force will work.

“I hope what would come out of that planning exercise is not just planning for facilities,” Lattin said. “But it’s looking at how we are going to approach education at least at the elementary level in Lawrence.”