photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

The Lawrence school board met on Monday, February 10, 2025.

Lawrence school board members will explore enrollment and class sizes while gathering data as a part of the district’s equity initiative to help all students graduate prepared for success.

On Monday, school board members received a report outlining the elements to be included in the upcoming equity reporting cycle. This cycle is part of the district’s ongoing equity efforts to establish a process for reporting on key performance measures and achievement outcomes. It includes both “leading and lagging indicators” and aims to track progress across all areas throughout the Pre-K to 12 experience and within the organization.

The school’s equity advisory group added a new area to analyze in the reporting cycle, enrollment and class size, with a report to be given on that focus area later this month. Interim Superintendent Jeanice Swift told board members that the district’s data team has been meeting for weeks on enrollment and class sizes.

“There are hundreds of hours behind really understanding where we are at every grade level throughout the district and using that information to shine the light on whether our ‘equity talk’ and ‘equity walk’ match,” Swift said.

There will also be similar reports in the future that will dive into areas like graduation rates, state assessment and ACT achievement, attendance, student behavior and more.

“Continuing this throughline across many areas of our district will benefit our understanding within each area of progress as well as from a systematic, holistic approach,” Swift said.

As the Journal-World reported, school board members received the most recent equity report in October. The equity work will further focus on enhancing trauma-responsive practices and behavioral intervention strategies. It aims to engage students, families, and community members in improving these practices and building a comprehensive support system for all.

In other business, school board members:

* Approved the renewal of contracts for Beautiful Music, Wind Instrument Connections, and Meyer Music, totaling $106,700 for band and orchestra instrument maintenance and repair. The funds will be sourced from the curriculum and instruction budget, as well as existing instrument rental and maintenance fees collected from students, according to the agenda.

* Approved the purchase of 15 snow blowers for a total of $26,760 from Heinen Outdoor Power Equipment. According to the agenda, many of the school district’s current snow blowers are in poor condition and have suffered frequent mechanical failures, making it difficult to clear snow efficiently and creating safety risks on school grounds. The purchase will be funded through the district’s capital outlay budget.

* Adopted revisions and a technical grammatical change for clarity and ease of use for the policy regarding the preservation of legal documents pending legal action. According to the policy, it states that “after the district receives knowledge of legal action against the district or its employees, documents or electronic information pertaining to the subject of the action, must be maintained in any form and may not be destroyed as long as the legal action is pending.”

* Met in two executive sessions for the purpose of discussing personnel matters. No action followed both of the sessions.