School board candidates discuss budget cuts, Common Core at forum

The four candidates competing for a two-year term on the Lawrence school board found little to argue about Wednesday night when they gathered to outline their positions on various issues.

Applied anthropologist and school board member Marcel Harmon, former school board member Mary Loveland, graphic artist Norine Spears and Kansas State Department of Education program consultant Kelly Spurgeon all had their nuances. But throughout an hour-long forum at Merchants Pub and Plate on Wednesday, they more or less stayed in line with each other.

The field of candidates will be narrowed down to two in next Tuesday’s primary election. Audio of the forum will be archived at LawrenceHits.com, which hosted the event along with the Voter Education Coalition. Among the topics they discussed:

School population growth

As housing development continues to expand in Lawrence’s western side, school attendance boundaries will need to be evaluated in the coming years, even after the board already approved new changes just this past December.

When asked how to deal with that, Spears and Spurgeon both said a new elementary school might need to be considered, while Harmon said that in the next five to 10 years, a new building would “probably” be necessary.

Loveland said it is important to make sure affordable housing remains available in more centrally located areas of Lawrence.

Budget cuts

With funding cuts looming from the state government, every candidate has noted that it will be important to navigate them carefully. But none on Wednesday could definitively answer what items they would delete or reduce to accommodate cuts from the state.

“Even as a board member I sure can’t answer that question,” Harmon said. “We’re still in the process of formulating what those cuts would look like.

“We’re going to evaluate them based on the goals of the district.”

Spears and Spurgeon also said they didn’t have answers. Loveland said not hiring a new employee after a retirement or resignation would be “something to look at.”

Technical education

Next year, the district will debut the new College and Career Center, which is focused on preparing students for technical careers. Loveland, Harmon and Spurgeon said it makes sense to emphasize those programs since workers in those fields are in demand.

Spears also expressed excitement for the new center and the partnerships it’s making with nearby colleges. But she was also uncertain about how much time technical education might take away from other disciplines.

“It’s going to be an interesting rollout to see what effect it has on our high schools,” she said. “We just won’t know until we get there.”

Common Core

While all four candidates said they support the standards, known in Kansas as the College and Career Ready Standards, three of them — Spurgeon, Harmon and Spears — voiced concern about student assessments that accompany them.

“We’ve never given a large-scale assessment aligned to these standards,” Spurgeon said. “We’ve never gotten any feedback on how well the curriculums align, how well the instruction is delivered.”