Lawrence USD 497 school board

The Lawrence school board on Monday received a progress report on equity work in the district, including developments with Beyond Diversity training and workshops on culturally relevant teaching.

Anna Stubblefield, assistant superintendent of educational support and equity, and Leah Wisdom, the district’s assistant director of student services, delivered the report, which also focused on the district’s two equity-based parent and community groups.

The Equity Council — which has also been referred to as the Equity Advisory Council — formed in 1986, but had undergone a revamping process during the 2015-2016 school year. District leaders, including Stubblefield, worked to relaunch the council this last year with the goal of more intentionally including “all marginalized groups,” Stubblefield said earlier this year.

The Equity Council and the district’s recently formed District Equity Leadership Team Advisory, or DELTA, both met twice with district leaders in the spring 2017 semester, Stubblefield and Wisdom told board members Monday.

When board member Vanessa Sanburn asked if a list of committee members could be posted online for the community, Stubblefield said to expect a public roster posted online soon.

“Probably we’ll get that up and running within the next week or so,” Stubblefield said. “… There will also be an electronic component that the members will interact in, so when there’s not actually a meeting people can share concerns or ideas that may come up.”

That “platform,” Stubblefield said, will be open for both committees, in turn allowing members to “see what’s happening across” different groups.

Monday’s report also addressed training sessions for Culturally Relevant Teaching and Beyond Diversity. CRT focuses mostly on staff involved with classroom instruction; Beyond Diversity is mandatory for all staff in the Lawrence district. That includes certified staffers — teachers, administrators, counselors, nurses and other certified professionals — as well as classified staff, which range from custodians and food-service workers to information technology staff, librarians and paraeducators.

One goal for the upcoming school year, Wisdom said, is to “broaden the scope of who’s able to” attend CRT training, similar to the district’s approach with Beyond Diversity.

In the spring 2017 semester, the district trained 45 staff members in CRT. This month, it expects to train an additional 45 staff members, Wisdom said, with three sessions (and an 150 additional trainees) scheduled for the 2017-2018 school year.

The district has two Beyond Diversity training sessions scheduled for this summer. The first will take place Tuesday and Wednesday, and it will be geared toward classified staff who might have difficulty attending sessions during the school year. August’s session will target food-service staff, Stubblefield said.

Five additional training sessions are on the books for the 2017-2018 school year, she added, with a few spots open for community members. Sanburn on Monday suggested that the district reach out to school board candidates to gauge their interest in attending the training.

Sending an invitation to candidates before the November election, Sanburn said, would present a “good opportunity” for both the candidates and their prospective constituents.

Although the August session is already filled, Stubblefield said, there’s also a Beyond Diversity session scheduled for October.

In other business, the board:

• Heard an update on the Kansas Legislature from Kathy Johnson, the district’s director of finance. The report included information on legislative action, finance framework provisions and estimates from the Kansas State Department of Education on funding impacts to the Lawrence district. However, the details will only be finalized when and if both Gov. Sam Brownback approves the Legislature’s school funding plan and the state Supreme Court determines that the plan passes constitutional muster.

• Heard a report on a potential survey for parents, students and staff regarding school start times. The report was authored by Jerri Kemble, assistant superintendent of innovation and technology; Ron May, director of operations; and Terry McEwen, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment. By the end of discussion, the board asked district leaders to put together a tentative timeline for the potential survey that would be presented at the board’s next meeting.