It’s a bit odd that Douglas County Commissioner Mike Gaughan is always running late, because his track record in office shows that he’s kept his focus on the future. Chronic tardiness was the impetus behind the gift that fellow commissioners affectionately gave Gaughan at his last meeting on Wednesday: a clock, in thanks for his near decade of service to the community. As that service came to an end, ...
Lawrence school board members on Monday voiced support for making high school days start later, and they’ll likely vote at their next meeting on whether to create an implementation committee. A district survey of parents and students showed that a majority support changing start times from the current 8:05 a.m. to either 8:30 or 9 a.m. High school staff, however, is less in favor of the idea. All groups ...
Students and parents are supportive of a later start time for Lawrence high schools, a new survey by the district has found. High school teachers are less enthused. The split may result in the district taking an extra year to study the issue. Among other points, the district’s high school start time advisory committee suggests taking more time to review options, potentially implementing any changes in August ...
In a somewhat unusual edition of Healthy Outlook, I wanted to give you a heads up about some changes for both the Journal-World as a whole and for the Health section. This past week, I started covering K-12 education and Douglas County government for the newspaper. I’ll still cover health, too, and fortunately, there’s a lot of overlap in these beats. I can recognize that perhaps all the people who are ...
Douglas County commissioners on Wednesday raised concerns with a proposed timeline to renegotiate funding of emergency services. The county and the city of Lawrence share funding of Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical, the Journal-World has reported. Under an agreement that hasn’t seen significant updates in the 22 years of its existence, the city pays roughly 75 percent of the costs, and the county 25 ...
The Free State High School Theatre Department brought back some shiny hardware from the Kansas Thespian Festival in Wichita. Now, the students and faculty face a difficult decision of whether to take their show on the road once again. As the Journal-World reported in December, the school’s fall play, “Wait Until Dark,” was chosen as one of three productions from high schools statewide to be performed at ...