photo by: Meeting screenshot/USD 497

Superintendent Anthony Lewis speaks to the Lawrence school board about increasing in-person learning for high school students during a meeting on Monday, Jan. 25, 2021.

Lawrence’s high school students will begin attending in-person classes more often next month, school board members heard at their meeting on Monday.

Lawrence Superintendent Anthony Lewis announced during the meeting that the district was planning to adjust its hybrid learning model on Feb. 15, allowing high school students to attend in-person classes two days a week. Currently, high school students attend in-person classes one day a week and take the rest of their classes remotely.

Additionally, Lewis said the district would continue to allow some students with certain educational needs — such as those struggling with attendance or social and emotional issues, among others — to attend in-person classes four days a week.

“The goal is to return as many students as possible safely, looking at (the) individual needs of each individual student,” he said.

The hybrid model change comes as some parents continue to call for further reopening of schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s also happening as the state moves into the second phase of its vaccine rollout, which includes providing the vaccine to K-12 teachers. Lewis said the district’s nurses and some health office aides had already received doses, and that the district was continuing to advocate for making vaccination of teachers and staff a priority.

Despite the addition of an extra day of hybrid learning for high-schoolers, Lewis said fully in-person school wasn’t yet in the cards. He said the district would only be able to further expand its learning model when Douglas County’s COVID-19 protocols allowed for people to gather in larger numbers without social distancing. Douglas County’s current public health order for COVID-19 limits mass gatherings to 10 people when 6 feet of social distancing cannot be maintained.

“It’s important to understand the district must contend with the realities of this pandemic, and that includes (the) trend and the spread of COVID-19 in our community and in Kansas,” Lewis said. “This district has moved cautiously from remote to hybrid and will continue to move cautiously from (hybrid) to in person.”

No changes were made to the schedules of elementary and middle school students, who were already attending two days of in-person classes a week.

In other business, the board approved adding two new courses — Latin American history and animation — to the district’s high school curriculum for the 2021-22 school year.

According to the course descriptions, the Latin American history class will examine the history, politics, economics, society and culture of Latin American groups in the United States, and the animation class will focus on the television and movie industries’ animation, character and story development, digital effects and motion graphics.

The board also heard a presentation on a plan developed by the local Safe Routes to School program but chose not to consider it for formal approval.

The plan calls for the district and the City of Lawrence to work toward improving sidewalks along identified “safe routes” that elementary and middle school students use for biking and walking to school each day. It also aims to increase the number of students who walk or bike to school every day.

The meeting agenda called for the board to consider approving the plan, but board member Shannon Kimball said the board shouldn’t be signing off on it because it was developed by the city and calls for improvements to city-owned sidewalks rather than school property. Other board members agreed, and they voted 6-0 not to consider the measure, with Erica Hill abstaining.

However, the district will still need to cooperate with the city on the implementation of the plan. The board still plans to develop a memorandum of understanding to establish a working group to conduct the plan, and that step would need board approval in the future.