Lawrence school administrators are proposing new initiatives that would put more emphasis on art education in conjunction with science, engineering and math courses. And they want to shift some personnel assignments in order to make better use of library and media center resources.

Those were two of the reports Lawrence school board members heard Tuesday night.

Under one proposal, art education would become more closely integrated with the so-called STEM subjects — science, technology, engineering and math — to form what many education groups are now calling a STEAM curriculum.

Sarah Oatsvall, assistant director of teaching and learning for the district, said there is a growing recognition that arts and sciences are closely related and require similar skill sets.

But there has been more of a push to integration them in the classroom has been since the adoption of the Common Core standards for reading and math, and the Next Generation Science Standards — all of which emphasize the need to teach key concepts and skills across many subjects.

“It’s a concept that is picking up some steam,” Oatsvall said, prompting a few chuckles and groans for the pun.

Under the proposal outlined Tuesday night, there would be changes at every grade level in the way art and other STEM courses are aligned, but the biggest changes would be at the middle and high school levels.

Liberty Memorial Central Middle School would be the site of a pilot project next year to use a curriculum called Gateway, a collection of courses and materials offered by a nonprofit organization, Project Lead the Way Inc.

Patrick Kelly, director of career and technical education, said the plan would be to train one or two teachers in the Gateway program and to select a group of courses that would be offered at the school.

At the high school level, Kelly said, the district already offers a large number of classes in most of the STEM and art subjects, but it has few offerings in the field of engineering.

The proposal calls for adding an Introduction to Engineering class at both Lawrence High School and Free State High School, plus additional engineering-related courses at the new College and Career Center, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2015.

Funding for those initiatives would come from the district’s federal Carl Perkins grants — money the district receives each year for career and technical education. Lawrence’s allocation for Carl Perkins grant funds for next year is $83,670, which is an increase of nearly $4,500 over this year.

The board took no action Tuesday, but Superintendent Rick Doll said the issue would come back on a future board agenda for approval of specific course additions and expenditures.

Library changes

Also Tuesday, the board heard an update on plans to reallocate library staff resources among the 14 elementary schools and to give more responsibility to non-licensed, classified library assistants.

Angelique Kobler, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning, said part of the goal was to distribute personnel more equitably among the schools so that the largest school, Langston Hughes, has enough manpower to keep its library open and available the same number of hours as the smallest building, New York School.

Also, though, Kobler said there is a noticeable shortage of licensed educators with an endorsement in library and media services. And at the same time, those educators are being asked to do more as libraries shift from managing book collections to offering a wide range of media services.

According to a spreadsheet Kobler presented, the shift would result in more hours being worked by non-certified staff and a reduction of half a full-time equivalent certified position.

Doll said the change would result in no net increase or decrease in salary expenses.