Rising enrollment in Lawrence school district may require boundary changes

Lawrence School District boundaries, 2015-2016

Enrollment in the Lawrence school district is projected to continue its upward climb, with two west-side schools expected to be near capacity in the next few years. Planning consultants told the Lawrence school board that the population increases will likely necessitate boundary changes or building expansions.

“There are capacity concerns as we start getting out towards the later end of projections, really necessitated by some of the enrollment change that’s going to be occurring in your community over the next five years,” Rob Schwarz of RSP & Associates told the school board at its meeting Monday.

The district’s overall student population is expected to increase over the next five years, growing from about 10,500 to 11,200 students by 2020, according to the RSP report. The report indicates that current residential development is concentrated largely in the northwest portion of the city, and that trend is expected to continue. As a result, Langston Hughes Elementary and Free State High School — both located in northwest Lawrence — are projected to approach their building capacities by 2019.

Langston Hughes has a capacity of 600 students and Free State High School has a capacity of 1,800 students. As part of the $92.5 million districtwide bond issue in 2013, both schools recently completed construction projects to add more classrooms. But outgoing Superintendent Rick Doll warned board members about resorting to additional building expansions or new buildings to deal with enrollment increases.

Instead, Doll said that he thought the board should stick to the plan, established as part of the recent bond issue, of shifting student populations to expanded schools in central Lawrence, such as Sunset Hill.

“But also remember we made a pretty conscious decision in this community, I think, to maintain our neighborhood schools and to try to keep all of our schools, but particularly our central Lawrence schools, vibrant,” Doll said. “So you have space at Sunset Hill and that was built on purpose.”

The district has about 10,500 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, and the overall student population has been on the rise since 2007. Doll said that he hopes the board will stick with the plan to manage enrollment growth by shifting population, despite potential resistance to boundary changes.

“The challenge is the change of the boundary to make that happen,” Doll said. “But to me, that’s an easier challenge than building another school on the edge (of the city) or doing all those things. I guess I just really hope that the board will remember what the background of their decision was and what they had in mind.”

Incoming Superintendent Kyle Hayden said the board’s boundary advisory committee will begin looking at potential boundary changes in its upcoming meetings, particularly at the elementary level. The committee would recommend any potential boundary changes to the school board, which has the final say. Hayden said the committee would likely take about a year to study potential changes before making a recommendation.

But Schwarz said that despite the upcoming adjustments the Lawrence district will need to make to deal with increasing student enrollment, the district should consider itself fortunate compared to others in Kansas that are losing numbers.

“I assure you that some of the districts we work with that have decreasing enrollment, their conversations are very much different and much more bleak,” Schwarz said.


In other business, the board:

• Reviewed a report on the district’s new technology implementation program, the “Learning Forward/Future Ready Initiative.” The district will distribute iPads to all middle school students next school year, and planning for upcoming education and training for parents and students is in the works. A device pilot program will also begin at the high school level next school year.

The next school board meeting will be 7 p.m. June 13 at district offices, 110 McDonald Drive.