photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Jeanice Swift is pictured on Monday, February 24, 2025.

The Lawrence school district celebrated the hiring of Interim Superintendent Jeanice Swift to take on the permanent role, and for Swift, she’s grateful to the community for their conversations with her thus far.

“I’m really grateful to the community for engaging … I wouldn’t have faulted anyone for taking a time out and not coming, yet folks came, and because of that I feel like we have a clear and collective direction,” Swift said. “We’re ready to get to work and move forward.”

“We’re in it for the long run, we’re in it for kids and to support our staff and to really engage and work alongside our community,” Swift said.

On Monday, Swift was hired to be the permanent superintendent. All of the school board members echoed in approval of the choice for the position, as many expressed that they were pleased with Swift’s work so far. Board member Shannon Kimball said she was thrilled when Swift decided to take on the Lawrence school district.

“You have your eyes on all the right things when it comes to academics and supporting our students and supporting our teachers,” Kimball said. “You lead with empathy and firmness, and you’re just the whole package, and I’m just so excited to see where we go from here.”

Board member Carole Cadue-Blackwood said that Swift exemplified the importance of role models for children in the community, especially for the female students.

“I want our children to be able to see themselves in leadership as they see you,” Cadue-Blackwood said. ” … In Lawrence, we have a unique opportunity to demonstrate that Lawrence is a place of opportunity to overcome broken rungs and making glass ceilings irrelevant.”

Lawrence school board Vice President GR Gordon-Ross said that when the board initially hired Swift, they made it clear that they didn’t want just a warm body in the chair.

“And you took that very seriously,” Gordon-Ross said. “What I’ve been most impressed with in the last seven months, you have been more than willing to tell us where we are doing really well, where we’re doing okay and where we need to make significant changes.”

photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Lawrence school board members gifted Superintendent Jeanice Swift several books highlighting the Lawrence community on Monday, February 24, 2025.

As the Journal-World reported, Swift was chosen to be the interim superintendent in August after the previous superintendent, Anthony Lewis, resigned last summer. The board had hired the Kansas Association of School Boards to help with the search for the permanent position.

According to the agenda, the search committee in collaboration with the KASB carefully considered the district’s leadership needs.

“After reviewing the applications of candidates from across the region and country and data from extensive community engagement activities and surveys, it became evident that Interim Superintendent Dr. Swift is the most qualified candidate,” the agenda states.

Swift has been working with the school district on a variety of efforts, which include the implementation of a new cellphone policy and guidance in January. The policy established a cellphone-free instructional environment for high school classrooms to limit distractions. Cellphones are now required to be turned off and put away during instructional time.

Also in January, she presented a report to board members that detailed input gathered from 55 face-to-face conversations and 1,193 online surveys from September to December. The input is planned to be used for the district’s future strategic decisions, as the Journal-World reported.

Before her time at the Lawrence school district, Swift was the superintendent of Ann Arbor Public Schools in Michigan for over a decade. Additionally, she served in the Colorado Springs School District 11 in multiple positions, including assistant superintendent, teaching and learning executive director, principal, assistant principal, and secondary English teacher, and she taught secondary English and Spanish for 10 years in the Hurst-Euless-Bedford School District in Texas. She was also named Superintendent of the Year by the Michigan Association of School Administrators and the National School Public Relations Association has recognized her as a “Superintendent to Watch.”

She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Arlington, her master’s at the University of Colorado and a doctorate in educational leadership at the Morgridge College of Education at the University of Denver.

Swift’s contract will be for the period of July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2028, pending the negotiation of the contract, which is subject to final approval by the school board at a later date.

In other business, school board members:

* Reviewed enrollment and class sizes for the 2024-2025 school year. The school district had a total of 10,358 students enrolled. There are 220 preschool students, 9,581 K-12 students and 557 students enrolled in Lawrence Virtual School.

The agenda presentation highlights a trend of declining enrollment at Lawrence Public Schools, showing a 1.4% decrease from the previous school year, with 152 fewer students compared to 2023-2024. However, it also pointed out that preschool enrollment has risen by 6.2% from the prior year and has been consistently growing.

The minimum and maximum number of students in a classroom vary depending on the subject and grade level. In K-5 classrooms, there are typically 18-25 students. Middle school classrooms usually have 23-26 students, while high school classrooms average 20-22 students. For many subjects and grade levels, the maximum number of students allowed in a classroom is 31.

* Heard an update on the status of instructional hours and discussed the inclement weather days to date, now totaling 9 inclement weather days. Last week, the school district had to cancel classes for four days of the week after a third big winter storm hit Lawrence.

While no decision has been made yet to use the designated inclement weather make-up day on April 21, a memo in the agenda says it’s important to plan and prepare that day as a school day. Any needed adjustments to the calendar will be announced no later than the beginning of spring break, March 14.

* Approved a three-year lease agreement with Apple Financial Services for 2,300 MacBook Air laptops. This includes AppleCare OS Support, three professional learning academy seats, and AppleCare+ from Apple Inc. for a total of $2,611,288, to be paid from the capital outlay funds. These laptops will be used by staff, high school innovation classrooms and professional development.

* Approved an agreement with ABcreative for the purchase and installation of additional playground equipment at Sunflower Elementary School in the amount of $52,287. The agenda states that the equipment was chosen based on a variety of factors, including ADA requirements, student enrollment, building capacity and student-to-playground equipment ratios.

photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Many Lawrence school district staff clapped after Jeanice Swift was hired to be the permanent superintendent on Monday, February 24, 2025.

* Authorized the purchase of seven vehicles from Laird Noller Automotive Inc. totaling $368,192. The purchase includes two student vans for each high school; four trucks for facilities and operations staff, which are equipped with snow removal equipment for maintaining safe and accessible school grounds during winter months; and one food service truck with a lift to replace an aging vehicle.

* Accepted bids as recommended for contractors to complete heating, ventilation and air conditioning system repairs at the Education Support Center, Facilities and Operations, Liberty Memorial Central Middle School and Sunset Hill Elementary School.

* Passed a resolution to terminate the employment contract of Mark Elliot Gridley, a speech language pathologist at Prairie Park Elementary. As the Journal-World reported, Gridley has been charged with sex crimes against a student.

* Adopted modifications to the existing procedures for streaming meetings and receiving public comments after a second reading. The changes were for the purpose of ensuring the district is complying “with the streaming platform’s acceptable use policies” and to clarify the enforcement of anti-bullying policies during public comment at board meetings. Public comment has also been moved to the end of the agenda, and Kelly Jones, school board president, had two public commenters muted Monday after she gave them warnings about rule violations.

* Held an executive session for the purpose of discussing personnel matters with no action to follow.