A few notes and items regarding education in the area:

Susan Esau often enjoys opening her mail, but especially when it comes from a northern California address with “McClendon” in the top lefthand corner.

Like an envelope that arrived last month, with a check inside.

“It was a nice surprise,” said Esau, executive director of the Lawrence Schools Foundation.

The check came from Brian McClendon and his wife, Beth Ellyn. Brian McClendon, a 1982 graduate of Lawrence High School, now works as a vice president at Google Inc.

McClendon requested that Esau not disclose the value of the gift. Asked where it ranged — between $500 and $5 million — Esau noted that the gift was “less than $25,000.”

She then declined to set a bottom end for the range.

No matter. The money will be used at the discretion of Lawrence High teachers Charlie Lauts and Nick Wood to buy software, acquire robotics kits or make other investments in the education of computer science — with input regarding prospective spending from McClendon himself, available via email.

Esau hadn’t spoken with McClendon about making the gift, and therefore was taken a bit aback when she sat down to check the post one day last month.

“You open the mail, there’s a check in the envelope and it’s a wonderful surprise,” she said. “That’s what makes this job so rewarding.”

Also rewarding, she said: distributing $350,000 to $400,000 annually in grants, scholarships, educator awards and support for preschool programs each year, while maintaining foundation assets of $1.5 million.

•••

Students studying engineering at Lawrence High already are reaping benefits from another donor: Suman Saripalli, an engineer and local businessman, who donated enough money to provide materials for students in College Prep Engineering to build model airplanes.

We’re not talking about those Testors biplanes assembled with snap-together pieces of plastic, either.

The materials allow the students to create their own designs and build, from scratch, actual planes that can be flown outside. I’m told the students have spent hours working on their crafts, with volunteer guidance from Saripalli and members of the Jayhawk Model Masters, a local model airplane club.

Students plan to conduct test flights for their projects late this morning — in the school gym, to avoid any conflicts with Mother Nature.

“They might find a little trouble with a bleacher here or there, but they’ll be OK,” said Charlie Lauts, their teacher.

•••

As the Lawrence school district works to boost “achievement” — i.e. test scores on assessments — among specific student groupings that have fallen short of standards established through federal law, members of the Lawrence school board will be facing some difficult decisions.

That’s the word from Rick Doll, district superintendent, who said told board members this week that administrators were busy putting together a District Improvement Plan to address areas that need improvement.

Such efforts are ongoing, he said, while cautioning board members that putting such plans into action — to “focus your resources on the goal” — will not be easy.

“How do we find dollars to make this happen? How do we redirect the resources to teaching and learning?” he said, as board members listened. “That will be a very difficult task for the new board.”

Board members will get a chance to set goals for the coming year, once four members elected last month — Rick Ingram, Shannon Kimball, Randy Masten and Keith Diaz Moore — are sworn into office in July.

— The First Bell mailbox is always open. Please feel free to send any feedback or ideas to me at mfagan@ljworld.com.