photo by: Journal-World File Photos

Clockwise from top left: Broken Arrow Elementary, Pinckney Elementary, Liberty Memorial Central Middle School, Woodlawn Elementary.

Story updated at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24, 2023:

The budget recommendation from Lawrence school district Superintendent Anthony Lewis calls for potentially closing or repurposing four schools: closing Broken Arrow, Pinckney and Woodlawn elementaries and repurposing Liberty Memorial Central Middle School.

The Lawrence school board will receive the recommendation at its meeting on Monday. As part of the meeting, the board will vote on which cuts to move forward with, including whether to conduct public hearings regarding specific school closures. The board will not vote on whether to close specific schools until after the public hearings are held.

The recommendation was informed by an enrollment analysis completed by the consulting firm RSP & Associates, a building analysis completed by ACI Boland Architects, and a committee and public feedback process facilitated by RSP.

Consultants with RSP projected that enrollment would decline by about 300 students over the next five years. Though cities throughout the region are expecting population growth related to the Panasonic battery plant that is under construction in nearby De Soto, which is expected to begin producing batteries in early 2025, an RSP consultant recently told the school board that he did not expect that growth to affect Lawrence enrollment within the next five years.

As part of the building analysis, each building was scored based on five factors: condition, count, size, accessibility and special program space. The score for the count was based on the number of classrooms, and the score for size was based on the size of the classrooms. The count and size were the most heavily weighted in the scoring system, with count being weighted at 39% and size being weighted at 32% (meaning those factors account for 71% of a building’s score).

As a result, the district’s older, smaller elementary schools generally scored the lowest, with Woodlawn, New York and Pinckney each receiving a composite score of less than 65 out of 100. The next-lowest-scoring schools were Hillcrest and Broken Arrow, which scored about 66 and 67, respectively. The number of classrooms was the biggest reason for the lowest-rated schools’ scores.

The district’s four middle schools were also analyzed, but the specific results have not been provided to the public. Doug Loveland, an architect working with the district on the review, has said that Liberty Memorial Central scored significantly lower than the other three middle schools.

A majority of the members of the Futures Planning Committee — which is made up of district administrators, teachers, staff, students, parents and community members — have voted in support of a district proposal to close two elementary schools and repurpose one middle school, though the committee was roughly split on a proposal to increase class sizes at the middle and high school levels (class sizes at the elementary level were increased as part of budget cuts last year).

In addition to the school closures, the recommendation also calls for middle and high school staffing reductions. A report was not yet posted to the agenda item further detailing the recommendation as of 6:30 p.m. Friday.

The amount of the district’s budget reduction package is based on a district estimate that it will take $9 million over the next one to two years to achieve competitive wages for staff; $1 million annually to cover annual cost increases; and approximately $6.2 million over the next 10 years to increase district cash balances. The district previously identified those three areas as budget priorities.

The Lawrence school board will convene at 6 p.m. Monday at district offices, 110 McDonald Drive.