Lawrence school board reviews fall community feedback to shape future direction

photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World
Interim Superintendent Jeanice Swift presents fall community feedback at the school board business meeting on Monday, January 27, 2025.
The Lawrence school board reviewed feedback from fall community conversations, focusing on teaching quality, equity, safety, and transparency to guide future decisions.
On Monday, school board members heard a report on the results of Interim Superintendent Jeanice Swift’s fall community conversations with students, staff, families and the public, as well as input from an online survey. The public engagement efforts gathered insights regarding the district’s strengths and challenges.
Swift told board members that the online survey had received approximately 1,193 responses, with a majority coming from parents, on top of their face-to-face engagements across the district.
There were five common themes that were shared on Monday, not ranked in any particular order, including quality teachers and staff; academic excellence and enhanced program offerings; equity, inclusion and belonging; safety and discipline; and transparency, communication and engagement.
The administration staff intends to use the responses from the community in order to help guide the district’s future work. Swift said in the presentation that the district’s focus moving forward will be to invest in teachers and staff through competitive compensation, professional development and a strong system of support.
In addition, she said the district will work to implement safety measures and strengthen equity initiatives to support all students, particularly those from marginalized groups, along with making equity, inclusion and belonging the foundation for achieving excellence in the Lawrence school district.
“I appreciate our equity advisory and look forward to working with that group more diligently as we work to ensure consistency in that practice,” Swift said.
Swift added many other things that the district hopes to focus on, with another being transparency and collaboration with the community to align policies and practices based on their shared values. After presenting the themes that resonated with people throughout the district and plans to move forward, Swift said she looks forward to starting this work.
“I hope that folks will recognize and value having them all together and seeing this as an emerging direction for the district,” Swift said. ” … This is what our community says, and I’m proud to say that it resonates with everything I know of this board.”
Swift stated that the district will use community feedback to guide strategic decisions and create a plan focused on long-term sustainability. Past President Shannon Kimball said she’s very excited about the work put together, and she thinks it will be helpful in building the school district’s strategic plan, which aims for all students to graduate on time prepared for success in college and careers.
In other business, school board members:
* Heard a report from the district’s Boundary Advisory Committee, who recommended no boundary changes at this time. The committee had reviewed two potential options: adjusting the dividing line between Lawrence High and Free State from 15th Street/Bob Billings Parkway to a point farther north, or creating a feeder school system.
The presentation in the agenda stated that since residential development has slowed down throughout the district, schools will experience smaller kindergarten classes that will not fully replace existing seniors, which will result in a lower student population districtwide.
The committee met last Wednesday to review enrollment projections for the school district, which estimated that there will be 9,491 students in the 2025-2026 school year, down 137 from current numbers. Additionally, enrollment is predicted to drop to around 9,400 students by the 2029-2030 school year. With the declining enrollment anticipated at Lawrence’s two high schools, neither is expected to reach capacity in the next five years and the committee determined that any boundary changes for the high schools could happen as early as the 2026-2027 school year.
* Entered into a contract with Cromwell Environmental Inc. DBA Cromwell Solar for $245,770.00 for the installation of a solar power system at Sunflower Elementary School. The agenda states that the solar system is expected to produce 150 KW of electricity.
According to the agenda, this project is funded through the fiscal year 2025 capital outlay budget. The district will collaborate with Cromwell Solar to explore available government incentives, tax credits and grants to help lower overall costs and improve the return on investment.
* Approved the purchase of two Kubota mowers for districtwide maintenance from McConnell Machinery Co. Inc. The mowers are available for a discounted price of $17,041.72 each, for a total of $34,083.44, to be funded from the Facilities and Operations capital outlay fund.
* Approved modifications to the existing procedures for streaming meetings and receiving public comments. The changes would be for the purpose of ensuring the district complies “with the streaming platform’s acceptable use policies” and to clarify the enforcement of anti-bullying policies during public comment at board meetings.
The edited version of the guidelines says that patrons who are unable to comply with these procedures may not be allowed to participate in public comments. However, people who are not allowed to participate may still email their comments to the board.
As the Journal-World reported, these changes followed an incident at the board’s last regular meeting on Jan. 13 when board members went into a brief recess after frequent public commenter Justin Spiehs used obscene language repeatedly in his comment despite being asked multiple times to stop.
* Held two executive sessions, one about matters involving school security and another “to discuss matters which would be deemed privileged in the attorney-client relationship.” No action followed these executive sessions.