photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

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

Lawrence school board members communicated support for families at Prairie Park Elementary, and a parent called for greater transparency and additional support after several students were allegedly sexually assaulted.

On Monday, Lawrence school board members told the community that they will help support the families in the school district and at Prairie Park Elementary School after eight children, between the ages of 6 and 11, were allegedly victimized by Mark Gridley, a speech pathologist at the elementary school, over the course of two days in early February.

Cynthia Courtney, a parent of students at Prairie Park, told board members that she was a close family friend of a brave student who reported their assault and has helped protect other students. She told the board members that she wanted to make requests on behalf of the victims and community parents.

“We’ve heard, ‘trust us,’ Courtney said. “We want to. We’re glad the district has its own child mental health and sexual violence experts, but please know that right now, it feels impossible to know who to trust.”

Courtney added that she wanted to call on the district to hire an external expert crisis team to assist with the situation and provide support beyond the internal team in order to avoid conflicts of interest, conduct a thorough audit and assessment of the systems that allowed the multiple incidents to allegedly occur.

“Better advise the district in communicating and rebuilding trust with the community, allowing staff to dedicate more time to their own healing and supporting students,” she said. Courtney added that while she understands that the integrity of the investigation must be preserved and laws should be followed, she asked the school board for expressing empathy and commenting on the publicly available information.

Prior to public comment, school board president Kelly Jones said that she wanted to extend her gratitude to several groups that helped respond to the situation at Prairie Park and the conversations with families, who have helped inform how the school board can assist and respond to what the community is going through.

“If there is more dialogue to be had or you want to reach out to the board, we will definitely connect folks to people that can provide those supports, and it (is) a partnership that is welcomed.”

Board member GR Gordon-Ross echoed that the school board is there to provide needed support for families going through this difficult time.

“I wanted to thank all of the families that have reached out, all the staff that have reached out, the work the staff has done, and we’ll just publicly say that (we) understand that trust is earned and that we’re here to do what we can,” Gordon-Ross said. ” … Feel free to reach out with what you need, and we’ll come together.”

Swift sent letters to families on Monday, which included reminders about the district processes for maintaining safe learning environments. The letter states that the district has the highest standards for their employees, who are entrusted to care for, educate and support the community’s children.

“When a safety concern is reported, our administrative team immediately investigates, including involving local law enforcement, as appropriate,” the letter said. “Based on the findings of the investigation, we take immediate and decisive action in accordance with the law and Lawrence Board of Education Policy.”

The letter states that the school district will continue to share information and resources with families to support parents in talking with their children about safety. The Children’s Advocacy Center offers guidance for parents and caregivers across many areas of child safety.

“Please continue to report any safety concerns you may have to your child’s school and encourage your children to do the same,” Swift said in the letter. ” … If you think your child could benefit from visiting with a counselor, please reach out to your school.”

As the Journal-World reported, a lawsuit was filed against the Lawrence school district on behalf of a current student alleging that she was sexually abused by Gridley; the suit claims that the district knew he had “engaged in acts of misconduct consistent with a dangerous propensity for unwanted or abusive contact with minor children.”

Gridley is currently being held at the Douglas County Jail on a $1.5 million bond. He is accused of sexually abusing at least eight victims. Gridley was charged with multiple counts, including aggravated indecent liberties with a child younger than 14 years old and kidnapping. Gridley is next scheduled to appear in court on March 26 for a status conference.

In other business, school board members:

* Approved an employment contract for Superintendent Jeanice Swift who was the interim superintendent prior to being offered the permanent role, and the contract will run from July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2028. At the previous board meeting, the school board hired Swift as the superintendent, as the Journal-World reported.

According to the contract in the agenda, Swift will be paid an annual salary of $235,000. When Swift was hired in August as the interim superintendent after the previous superintendent, Anthony Lewis, resigned last summer, she was paid a salary of $194,482.08 from Aug. 30 2024 to June 30, 2025.

* Adopted the district calendar for the 2025-2026 school year. The parameters of the calendar are centered on state requirements, including one that school districts allot a minimum of 1,116 class-time hours for most K-12 grade levels. The first full day of classes for all grade levels is Aug. 13, 2025 and the final day of classes is May 21, 2026.

* Purchased 145 uninterruptible power supply units from TwoTrees Technologies LLC for roughly $80,000. The district uses these power supplies to keep its network equipment, phones and other important systems operating during power outages. Most of the existing units were purchased in 2016 and are near the point where they need to be replaced.

* Increased the amount of the district’s contract with Favorite Healthcase Staffing for substitute nurses by $25,000. The original contract was for $32,000 and was approved in August. The agenda for Monday’s meeting did not specify any reason for the increase, other than that “The increase is necessary because of the unavailability of the district’s substitute nurses.”

* Approved a contract in the amount of $33,000 with BSN Sports LLC to replace the aging windscreens and rail padding on the baseball and softball fields at Lawrence High School.

* Hired Lankford Enterprises Inc. to sand and refinish the auxiliary gym floor at Lawrence High School, for an amount not to exceed $23,875.

* Held two executive sessions: the first to address personnel matters under “non-elected personnel” and the second to discuss topics protected by attorney-client privilege. No action followed both sessions.