photo by: Matt Resnick/Journal-World

Lawrence school board members participate in the board's annual self-evaluation survey on Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2023.

As part of its annual self-evaluation survey, the Lawrence school board on Tuesday said it was pleased with how it communicated with the community on contentious issues like school closures.

But board members said they still have work to do on other tough issues, including figuring out ways to make the district’s activities and events more representative of the entire student body.

School board member Ronald “G.R.” Gordon-Ross said the board did a good job of informing community members of the impacts of major decisions. For example, the board voted earlier this year to close Broken Arrow and Pinckney elementary schools, which included a public hearing and other community outreach efforts prior to the vote.

“I thought we tried really hard,” Gordon-Ross said. “Even when we knew people wouldn’t agree with us because they didn’t see it the same way — of trying to help people understand why we were making the decisions we were making in terms of the overall impact to students across the district. I thought we did a really good job of trying to help explain that and get that message out. Despite being told to our faces that we don’t care about kids.”

Present for the meeting were board members Kelly Jones, Bob Byers, Shannon Kimball, Gordon-Ross, Paula Vann and Erica Hill, while Carole Cadue-Blackwood was absent. At the request of Jones, the board president, incoming board member Anne Costello also participated. The self-evaluation survey contains dozens of questions on topics related to board governance, educational curriculum, students, liaison and communications, personnel, administration and facilities. Tuesday’s meeting primarily focused on board governance, students and administration.

photo by: Matt Resnick/Journal-World

The cover page of the Lawrence school board’s self-evaluation survey.

Another question on the survey asked whether the district affords “equal access to school activities, regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, or disability.” Jones said there were “areas where we’re not seeing representation in the way that we want to,” and that there “is a barrier in some ways for (student) access to some of our activities where we would see our full student body represented.”

Jones said that she has attended school-sponsored events in which the students participating were “predominantly white.”

“So you wonder how we can increase access for students of color that might want to participate,” she said.

But Jones said that she believes the district’s “value in that area is stated,” referencing the district’s equity policy.

Gordon-Ross added that there “are pockets in certain areas where we can see the representation of student involvement is not indicative of the diversity of the student population.”

“It’s something that we are aware of and actively striving towards, but we still have work to do,” he said, adding that “we don’t (always) see the participation reflect the diversity.”

Another area that needs “a lot of work,” Vann said, is the board’s overall encouragement and support of personnel on matters related to disciplinary measures.

Gordon-Ross agreed, but added that it’s not the board’s role to “investigate a disciplinary matter in a building.”

One area that several board members agreed that they’ve seen improvement in is the board’s ability to access professional development training.

“That is something that we need to continue supporting as a necessity and not a luxury,” Kimball said, “in order for us to be good in the work of governance as a body.”

Kimball also said that due to workload challenges related to “difficult decisions” over the past year, the board has made changes in its processes, and that those changes have somewhat eased the workload.

“It’s kind of a continual improvement,” she said.

Jones told the Journal-World after Tuesday’s meeting that the remainder of the survey would be completed and tabulated at a later date, and that Tuesday’s meeting was part of a broader discussion about the board.

“So moving into January, we’ll be looking at defining our values and mission,” she said. “And making sure that we are adequately living up to those to the best of our ability.”