Lawrence USD 497 school board

The Lawrence school board on Monday will hear a report on the results of a survey intended to take the pulse of community members in advance of a possible 2017 bond issue.

Conducted through market research organization Patron Insight, the telephone survey polled 400 heads of households, all of them registered voters, across the Lawrence community starting in mid-November and concluding, with a break during the Thanksgiving holiday, through the first week of December.

The survey, a final report of which has yet to be released, asked participants specific questions to gauge support for or opposition to possible bond construction projects at Lawrence High School, Free State High School and the district’s four middle schools, as well as a potential tax increase to fund those improvements. Three questions in the survey identified a range of possible tax increases, asking participants to weigh in on potential hikes of $35, $45 or $55 per year for the owner of a home appraised at $200,000.

As of the school board’s most recent meeting on Nov. 28, the estimated base cost for the proposed improvements totaled more than $75.5 million. Suggested renovations include roof repairs and replacements at all secondary schools, an expanded kitchen and overall classroom space at Lawrence High School to accommodate the district’s growing population, and the transformation of Free State High School’s library into an “innovation commons.”

The school board has not yet determined, however, which projects would be included, or what a “total amount” for a potential bond issue might look like, according to district spokeswoman Julie Boyle.

Also included in the survey were more generalized questions about the district’s performance in different areas, among them quality of education, safety, facilities, technology, equity, class size and performance of teachers, principals, the school board and Superintendent Kyle Hayden.

The board is slated to vote for the approval of the potential 2017 bond issue at its Jan. 9 meeting. If approved, the bond issue would likely be brought to a public vote in May.

In other business, the board will:

• Hear a report on the new Kansas Education Systems Accreditation model, or KESA, approved by the Kansas Board of Education earlier this year. The report is co-authored by Angelique Nedved, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning; Terry McEwen, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment; and Kirsten Wondra, assistant director of curriculum, instruction and assessment.

• Hear a report on the district’s capital outlay budget and project planning from Tony Barron, executive director of facilities and operations, and Kathy Johnson, director of finance.

• Hear a report on parents, student and staff privacy expectations related to investigations within the school system. The report — co-authored by Anna Stubblefield, assistant superintendent of education support, and David Cunningham, executive director of human relations and legal counsel — arrives on the heels of an investigation into racist comments allegedly made this semester by a South Middle School teacher. That investigation, the findings of which have never been revealed by the district, recently ended with the resignation of the accused teacher amid much media attention and public speculation. The district also confirmed on Thursday, after being confronted with a Kansas Open Records request by the Journal-World, that it had entered into a settlement agreement with the teacher, and the agreement included provisions to withhold information from the public about the investigation in exchange for a promise that the district would not be sued.