photo by: Rochelle Valverde

Kristen Ryan, executive director of human resources, addresses the Lawrence school board as part of its meeting May 23, 2022.

The Lawrence school board received an update on the dozens of teaching and other positions being eliminated as part of the district’s budget cuts and the creation of multigrade elementary classrooms.

The board previously approved $6.41 million in budget cuts, including various teacher and staff reductions. As part of its meeting Monday, the board received a report indicating that 90 staff positions had been cut, including 72 teacher positions, 6.5 district level administrators, and 11.5 classified staff.

Kristen Ryan, executive director of human resources, told the board that the district offset some of those cuts through retirements and resignations, but that two-thirds of the cuts had to come from current staffing.

“The reduction process, as I shared prior, was sensitive, challenging and an ever-changing puzzle,” Ryan said.

Ryan said that teachers whose positions were cut were given the opportunity to transfer to open positions before those positions were opened to external applicants, and that as a result the district did not have to “use its reduction in force policy.” District spokesperson Julie Boyle said that means teachers whose positions were being eliminated were given the option to transfer to another position that aligned with their licensing, though that doesn’t mean all teachers elected to do so.

The budget anticipated that dozens of teaching positions would be eliminated due to enrollment declines as well as the creation of multigrade elementary classrooms. Ryan said the majority of the reductions were at the elementary level, and also noted other impacts of reductions. She said those included increase in class size, reduction in elective options, and delayed master schedule planning.

Multigrade classrooms allow more possibilities for combining classrooms with low numbers of students, thereby resulting in fewer classes overall and the need for fewer teachers, as the Journal-World previously reported. The district has anticipated that multigrade classrooms will be put in place in almost all of the district’s 13 elementary schools.

Ryan said some schools will not have any multigrade classrooms, while other schools may just have multigrade classrooms in certain age levels. She said schools will communicate information regarding anticipated class configurations to parents this week, but that because the district won’t know actual enrollment numbers until August, some decisions about whether a certain classroom is single or multigrade could potentially change.

Board member Kelly Jones said that, should enrollment result in additional multigrade classrooms come August, such short notice felt too late for teachers and especially for parents that don’t think a multigrade classroom would be a good fit for their student.

“That could feel very anxiety provoking,” Kelly said.

Regarding the timing, Superintendent Anthony Lewis said the district has no control over what kids enroll and whether the district experiences increased enrollment. Lewis said the district is distributing an informational flyer about multigrade classrooms, which is also available on the district’s website, so parents can have some idea of what to expect.