photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Lawrence school board members met on Monday, August 25, 2025.

Lawrence school board members deferred action on whether or not esports, or competitive video gaming, will be offered alongside traditional middle and high school sports as an official activity.

At the school board’s meeting on Monday, board members raised questions about the financial costs and funding sources for the esports program if it were to be offered as a school activity. Deputy Superintendent Larry Englebrick told the board that the cost for the program would be “manageable,” and board member Kelly Jones said she would like to see more information as someone new to learning about the sport.

“I would really want to understand the financial commitment of the district, given some of our pressing responsibilities, particularly those pertaining to wages … and a couple of other areas that we’ve been working on,” Jones said.

Board member Anne Costello said that while she understood everyone’s concerns about how the program will be paid for, it’s something she’s in strong support of.

“The opportunity to reach this group of kids that have not been touched before is amazing,” Costello said. “It’s something that I think is so important. We do put a lot of emphasis on athletics and team building and all the benefits that come from that, and while this is obviously a different route, there are still those same benefits that can be gleaned from this.”

Jennifer Miller-Pugsley, Lawrence Virtual School’s esports coach, said the esports program was something that was newly offered last year and students were able to play Mario Kart, Rocket League and Fortnite in club competitions.

“It’s just an opportunity to grow, especially since there’s more opportunities for more games (and) for kids to be involved,” Miller-Pugsley said.

Travis Matthews, a recent graduate from LVS, said the school’s esports team has had a lot of success in the last year when they went to the Sunflower State Championship for esports. The team ended up winning the Rocket League Championship, and he said it was something very special to everyone.

“There’s a lot of skills you can learn from it, like I myself learned a lot of skills about leadership, team management, streaming, video editing, a lot of different various things,” Matthews said. “Esports was a big part of high school for me. I think a lot of other kids feel the same way.”

Eli May, a current eighth grader at the school, said he likes esports “because I get to play games with real people,” May said. ” … esports really lets me be a part of a team.”

Superintendent Jeanice Swift said district staff will gather information on the esports program implementation plan and associated costs at the next scheduled board meeting, which is Sept. 8.

In other business, school board members:

• Heard from Amelia Wyckoff, a paraeducator at the Liberty Memorial Central Middle School, regarding compensation concerns for educational support professionals, or ESPs, in the school district. The Lawrence Education Association is currently in the process of negotiating its contract with the school district for ESPs, and board president GR Gordon-Ross invited Wyckoff along with members of LEA to speak at Monday’s meeting.

“We just don’t have enough to make it,” Wyckoff said. “It’s just the bottom line … Our wages are not high enough to sustain us … Grocery shopping is a completely different experience than it was a couple of years ago and we’re short. We’ve just fallen short of what it takes to make it.”

Wyckoff said she’s noticed that for the employees who have been able to work these jobs in the district longterm, those employees have been receiving additional support elsewhere.

“We know that we matter, that you know we matter, we just need to make our budgets work as well,” Wyckoff said. “We have a budget as well.”

photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Amelia Wyckoff speaks at the Lawrence school board meeting on Monday, August 25, 2025.

• Received a report on the back-to-school highlights for the start of the 2025-2026 school year.

Swift said that the addition of preschool classrooms at Sunflower and Woodlawn elementary schools has resulted in an increase of 43 students, bringing the district’s total preschool enrollment to approximately 263. That’s up from 220 students last year, Swift said.

A bakery has now launched at Community Connections at Pinckney. Equipment for the bakery came from a $100,000 Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure grant from the Kansas Department of Agriculture, as the Journal-World reported. Since Aug. 13, Community Connections at Pinckney has produced more than 16,000 items, including 5,500 brownies, 3,300 dinner rolls/breadsticks, 2,600 blueberry scones/cinnamon rolls.

• Approved a one-year agreement with Logicalis Inc. for a Webex meeting subscription totaling $65,000 to support webinars, education meetings and distance learning.

• Purchased 261 additional student licenses for eDynamic Learning at LVS for 2024-2025, totaling $37,584. The district typically buys 125 seats annually, with final invoicing at year end, but extra seats were needed to cover last year’s overage.

• Held an executive session “to protect the public interest in negotiating a fair and equitable contract to discuss negotiations.” No action was taken after the session.