photo by: Dylan Lysen/Lawrence Journal-World

Lawrence Public Schools district offices pictured in April 2021.

The Lawrence school board will have a special meeting this evening as part of a state law that requires public school districts to accept students from outside their district, if their schools have available capacity.

The board will meet at 6 p.m. today at district headquarters, 110 McDonald Drive, to make formal determinations whether any Lawrence schools will have excess capacity for out-of-district students. The state law requires districts to make those determinations on or before May 1.

A staff memo that will be presented to the board recommends that most schools in the district be designated as at-capacity and unavailable for out-of-district students. However, a few grades in a few schools are recommended to allow out-of-district students, with Lawrence High taking up to 40 and Free State taking up to 20.

Recommendations to the board include:

• 10 students per grades 9-12 at Lawrence High;

• 10 students per grade 10-11 at Free State;

• Three students per grade 6-9 at Billy Mills Middle School;

• Five students per grade 1-2 and two students in grade 3 at Prairie Park Elementary;

• Four students in grades 2 and 4 and five students in grade 5 at Quail Run Elementary;

The board will be asked to approve the capacity recommendations, as well as overall enrollment projections and teacher to student ratio projections for each building.

The special meeting also will include a closed-door executive session to discuss personnel matters. The board is not expected to take any action on those personnel matters, the district said in a release.

Below are tables provided by the district: