Lawrence USD 497 school board

The search for Kristie Adair’s replacement on the Lawrence school board is well underway. As of Tuesday, less than a week after posting the opening, the school district had received seven applications for the spot vacated by Adair earlier this month.

Among those applicants are school board veteran Mary Loveland, who served on the board from 1987 to 2003 and again from 2007 to 2011, and newcomer Margaret Weisbrod Morris, an arts educator and chief program officer at the Lawrence Arts Center.

Other school board applicants include: Victoria Anderson, James Hollinger, Melissa Johnson, Enoch Kaulaity and Fatima Khan. The school district has not publicly shared any of the applications, however, and the Journal-World on Wednesday began the process of filing a Kansas Open Records request seeking those documents. The applications, in addition to home addresses and phone numbers, also ask candidates about their motives behind applying for the position, among other details such as relevant experience and qualifications.

In the meantime, the Journal-World will publish information about each of the candidates as it becomes available.

The deadline to submit an application is 5 p.m. March 6. From there, school board members will review applications at their March 13 meeting and then appoint one applicant to serve the remainder of Adair’s term, which ends on Jan. 8, 2018.