photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World photo

There was a packed audience at the Lawrence school board meeting Monday night as nearly 30 speakers addressed the board during an hour and 24 minute-long public comment period. Though not on the agenda ahead of the meeting, proposed school closures dominated the first two hours of the night following the board's return from an executive session recess.

The Lawrence school board heard nearly an hour and a half of public comments at its Monday meeting, which was packed with community members against proposed closures that will potentially shutter some eastern and central Lawrence schools.

The high meeting attendance was due in part to a rally that took place immediately prior to the meeting’s 6 p.m. start time. During that rally, community members advocated against shutting the doors of New York, Broken Arrow, Pinckney, Woodlawn and Hillcrest elementary schools and Liberty Memorial Central Middle, which are on the chopping block under a group of scenarios proposed by board committees as cost-saving measures with a multimillion-dollar budget deficit on the horizon.

During the public comment period, board members heard concerns about insufficient consideration given to equity for lower-income students and families, the unsuitability of LMCMS as an elementary building, and skepticism toward whether the board had truly exhausted all avenues of finding funding to fill in the gaps, among numerous other topics.

By the time the list of those signed up to speak had been exhausted, 29 different individuals — or in some cases, groups of children who are students at some of the potentially affected schools — had spoken for about an hour and 24 minutes. The majority of that group, those who gave their comments in person, had been waiting at the district office to do so since 4:30 p.m. this afternoon, when the rally started, and through a full hour-long recess for a board executive session.

photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World photo

There was a packed audience at the Lawrence school board meeting Monday night as nearly 30 speakers addressed the board during an hour and 24 minute-long public comment period. Though not on the agenda ahead of the meeting, proposed school closures dominated the first two hours of the night following the board’s return from an executive session recess.

The board meeting was still underway by press time Monday night.