Lawrence Public Schools (Shutterstock photo)

Before the Lawrence school board met to approve the 2016-2017 district budget Aug. 8, board members and other district leaders discussed potential challenges and opportunities for the new school year at a special goal-setting session led by superintendent Kyle Hayden.

Based on the feedback from Hayden’s “listening tour,” which entailed talks with teachers and staff at all 21 Lawrence schools last spring, school board members were asked to submit recommendations to general “excellence, equity and engagement” goals. The session, which ran more than two hours and spanned topics from curriculum standards to classroom technology, produced quite a few major talking points, a handful of which we’ve included here.

“I think there’s a lot of confidence in the direction we’re heading,” said Hayden, who plans to present a second draft of the goals at the school board’s next meeting on Sept. 12. He said the final draft will most likely be presented to the board for approval at the next meeting after Sept. 12.

Ticket time?

The district began implementing its three-tiered discipline model, Ci3T, during the 2013-2014 school year. If analysis of the program from Hayden’s visiting tours last spring is any indication, however, the district still has some work to do in ensuring its success at both the elementary and secondary level.

Based on teachers’ feedback, school board members at the goal-setting workshop recommended the idea of rethinking one element in particular of the approach, which stands for Comprehensive, Integrated, Three-Tiered Models. The program is meant to address the social, emotional and behavioral factors that can sometimes stand in the way of a student’s academic progress.

Its ticket system encourages staff to give out “tickets” to students as a way of reinforcing positive actions. After earning tickets, students can exchange them for items at the school or classroom store. But staff at Lawrence’s secondary schools, which are only in their second year of implementing the program, have expressed concern that the reward system may not be sophisticated enough for older students. A new pencil from the school store might work on a second grader, for instance, but perhaps less so with a 16-year-old.

“We get constant feedback from teachers and administrators about what’s working and not working,” said Kevin Harrell, the district’s executive director of student services.

“Part of our conversation is, it’s not really about the tickets,” he said. “It’s about the positive reinforcement between the staff and students… I think sometimes we get caught up in giving tickets, but it really is about the base behavior of giving praise.”

Social media education…for parents

Technology remains a talking point among teachers, staff and parents in the district, where the much-hyped rollout of 5,000 iPads and 500 laptops generated a rare non-unanimous vote from the school board when the proposal to acquire the devices was ultimately approved 5-2 last spring.

School board member Rick Ingram, who voted against the initiative earlier this year, suggested at the goal-setting session that the district devise a sort of model social media contract for parents. The guidelines, he said, could be modified by parents to meet their needs, but would, fundamentally, provide a starting point for parents looking to “have a conversation about expectations and appropriate behavior” with their kids.

The district already has a series of programming devoted to digital citizenship (i.e., staying safe online) lined up at secondary schools this fall, as Jerri Kemble, assistant superintendent of innovation and technology, pointed out during the goal-setting session.

Teachers will have both optional and required training on the devices, their operating systems and software. Parents also will have the opportunity to attend a training session after the devices are distributed to students.

Equity goals

The district’s work in addressing equity will continue this year, with an emphasis on expanding Beyond Diversity training to all certified and classified staff.

Since 2009, the district has provided Beyond Diversity training (the two-day seminar aims to build a foundation for deinstitutionalizing racism and eliminating racial achievement disparities) to more than 1,400 teachers, classified staffers and administrators, according to district spokeswoman Julie Boyle. Additionally, 100 others, including parents, community partners and school board members, have also undergone the training.

All new teachers will attend the seminar this October, Boyle said, and the district has already begun training its classified staff. She estimates about 75 percent of the district’s teachers are trained in Beyond Diversity as of this month.

One suggestion from the school board during the goal-setting workshop was to invite the district’s school resource officers to attend training as well. The officers work primarily in the high schools and are assigned to middle and elementary schools as needed, but are employees of the Lawrence Police Department, not the school district, Boyle said.