photo by: USD 497

Board Vice President Paula Vann, Past President Erica Hill, and board member Carole Cadue-Blackwood discuss the criteria they used in selecting applicants to advance in a process to fill a vacant board seat.

Lawrence school board leaders have narrowed down a pool of 13 applicants for a recently vacated seat on the board to four people in preparation for interviews next week.

As part of its meeting Monday, the board received the applications and selected four individuals to proceed to an open interview process next Tuesday. Board President Shannon Kimball said the pool represented a broad range of candidates and backgrounds, and that choosing four was a challenge.

“It’s talented and committed group of volunteers and advocates and community members, with a pretty broad range of experience and background and perspectives,” Kimball said.

The four applicants selected to move on to the interview process are as follows: area business owner Amy McVey; former school board member Ronald “GR” Gordon-Ross; Lawrence Schools Foundation board member and Superintendent’s Advisory Board member Anne Costello; and Billy Mills Middle School Site Council and Schwegler Elementary School Equity Team member Clint Ramirez Stephens. Gordon-Ross lost re-election to the board in 2021, coming in fourth place behind Andrew Nussbaum. Nussbaum resigned his position, effective immediately, on July 18, which opened up the vacant seat on the board.

Only eight of the 13 applicants received any votes from the board. The top two vote getters were Ramirez Stephens and Gordon-Ross, who each received four votes total. McVey and Costello each received three votes. Of the applications who won’t move on to interviews, four received two votes: former New York Elementary and West Middle School site council member Travis Tozer; Pinckney Elementary and Youthfriends volunteer Heather Sprague; Lawrence Memorial Hospital employee Justin Thomas; and Woodlawn PTO member and Save Our Schools 497 leader Alicia Erickson.

The specific votes of the six board members are as follows:

•Board President Shannon Kimball: McVey, Sprague, Gordon-Ross, Ramirez Stephens

•Board Vice President Paula Vann (formerly Smith): Tozer, Gordon-Ross, Costello, Ramirez Stephens

•Past President Erica Hill: McVey, Sprague, Gordon-Ross, Ramirez Stephens

•Carole Cadue-Blackwood: Costello, Erickson (Cadue-Blackwood only voted for two)

•Kay Emerson: Tozer, Thomas, Costello, Erickson

•Kelly Jones: McVey, Gordon-Ross, Thomas, Ramirez Stephens

The board selected the four finalists using a ballot process. Specifically, each board member used a paper ballot to select their top four candidates and the overall votes were tallied to determine which four candidates received the most votes overall.

The board began the discussion with some board members sharing the criteria they used in evaluating the candidates. Kimball said in part that for her the most important criteria was experience in board work, either in the education field or elsewhere.

“Because doing work as part of a board like this is different than being a community advocate or being in the private sector, for example,” Kimball said.

Hill emphasized that she thought board members needed to look at the big picture and not focus on a specific issue, and that it was important for them to facilitate an environment of collaboration, coordination, communication and professionalism. Vann said the criteria she used included knowledge around school board governance and district policy, civic engagement and volunteerism, skills and commitment to the district.

Cadue-Blackwood said she looked at some of the same criteria as other board members, but that at the heart of it she looked at commitment and passion.

“I just want to look for someone who really has a passion for this community that I love so much,” Cadue-Blackwood said.

Cadue-Blackwood and Emerson were the only board members to vote for Erickson, who led the community group Save Our Schools. As the board recently worked to address a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall, the group advocated for not closing some of the district’s smaller neighborhood schools, as well as other issues such as transparency and community engagement in the budget process.

Jones said she looked at some of the same criteria as the other board members, and also considered whether responses indicated that applicants were committed to the board’s strategic goals, particularly those related to equity. Jones said eight candidates rose to the top for her, and she hopped that even those who were not picked Monday would consider running in the upcoming election. She said her top two candidates were Gordon-Ross and Ramirez Stephens.

Applicants answered 10 questions with a maximum 300-word response, including why they want to serve on the board, the challenges they see facing the district and what they see as the role of the board in budgeting. The full applications are available as part of the board’s agenda materials.

The interviews with the board will take place during a special board meeting on Aug. 30. The person the board selects will fill Nussbaum’s vacated seat until a special election takes place in November 2023.

•In other business, the board voted unanimously to ratify a contract with the Lawrence Education Association, the union for teachers and other certified staff members. As the Journal-World previously reported, the contract includes an $825 pay increase for this school year. Overall, the contract allocates about $1.05 million more toward the certified staff salary pool, including $862,616 to increase the overall salary schedule matrix, or a 1.8% increase, and $186,000 toward “horizontal movement.” Horizontal pay increases are raises for work toward additional levels of education. The agreement does not provide funding for any vertical movement in the pay scale, which are pay increases due to additional years of service.

LEA asked for $1.34 million for raises, which would have been a 2.65% increase to the overall salary pool. The district and the union representing classified staff agreed on the district’s proposal for a 4.95% increase in funding for that salary pool on June 1, falling far short of the union’s proposal to bring all pay to at least $15 per hour. Administrative staff received an additional $55,897, or a 1% increase, to their salary pool.