photo by: Nick Krug

The Lawrence school district offices are pictured at 110 McDonald Drive in this file photo from May 2017.

A $150,000 grant will soon allow the Lawrence school district to focus on improving its leadership qualities.

The Kansas Leadership Center, a nonprofit organization that aims to foster better leadership in the state’s communities, announced Wednesday that the school district is one of 63 state organizations selected to receive the grant for 2020. The grants allow the selected organizations to participate in the center’s leadership training programs.

The Lawrence school district is one of the 33 new organizations to join the program next year, the center said in a Wednesday news release.

“In the five years we’ve been offering Leadership Transformation Grants, we have more grantees this year than ever before,” Ed O’Malley, president and CEO of the Kansas Leadership Center, said in the news release. “In 2020, KLC will partner with 63 organizations across Kansas to help them manage change and make lasting progress for years to come.”

Julie Boyle, a spokeswoman for the school district, said the grant would be used to allow teachers, administrators and school board advisory committee members to attend leadership training programs. The school district is developing a coordination plan that will provide those training opportunities, she said.

“We’re excited,” Boyle said in an email to the Journal-World. “We value our partnership with the Kansas Leadership Center. Most, if not all, of our executive leadership team have participated in KLC leadership training.”

The leadership training also helps the school district focus on goals for its new five-year strategic plan, Boyle said. This year — the first year of the plan — includes action steps for building leadership skills among school district employees, which is part of the plan’s initiative to “support the success and well-being of every employee,” she said.

Other school districts receiving the grants include Augusta, Blue Valley, Kansas City, Kan., Wichita and Wellsville.

Additionally, Douglas County received a second grant from the program. The center said the county government was one of the 30 organizations to return to the program for 2020 after being selected in 2019.