Story updated at 5:40 p.m. Thursday, April 4: Sunflower Elementary School music teacher and choir director Peter Gipson said he’s “extremely humbled and grateful” to be named the Lawrence school district’s Elementary Teacher of the Year. Gipson, now in his 14th year with Lawrence schools and 10th year at Sunflower, was honored during an all-school assembly Thursday morning. “He does not work or ...
Before she came to Douglas County, Shannon Bruegge, behavioral health parole officer, worked for eight years in Cass County, Mo., supervising clients with substance use disorders as part of a drug court. “I saw people’s lives transformed,” she told Douglas County commissioners during their Wednesday work session on specialty courts. Bruegge was hired with the 2017 launch of the county’s behavioral ...
A key player in the Douglas County criminal justice system on Wednesday told county commissioners that he is “fully in support” of a drug court — “but I don't think that's the place where we ought to be stopping.” Douglas County District Attorney Charles Branson said he wants to “take a little bit higher view” of the programs the county has already initiated to reduce rates of incarceration, such ...
The Dwayne Peaslee Technical Training Center has increased the number of classes it can offer — perhaps exponentially. Peaslee Tech is partnering with Cengage Learning’s Education To Go program to offer students hundreds of online courses. Students enroll through Peaslee, in person or online; then the online programs will be used in a number of ways, depending on the content, said Kevin Kelley, executive ...
Douglas County commissioners on Wednesday will attend a work session on specialty courts — such as a drug court — as possible alternatives to incarceration. The county launched a behavioral health court in 2017 as one means of keeping those with mental illness and behavioral health needs out of the Douglas County Jail — with the goals of both better serving those offenders and scaling down the population ...
Teachers in four Lawrence schools voted recently to apply for the Kansans Can School Redesign Project’s Apollo phase — but if you don’t live and breathe Kansas K-12 education, that statement might leave you scratching your head. Here’s a primer on the statewide initiative — why it’s happening, what it could look like, what it means for Lawrence and when all Kansas schools will be redesigned. Where ...