photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Lawrence school board members held their meeting on Monday, Nov. 10, 2025.

Lawrence school board members voted Monday to appoint the fourth-place finisher in the Nov. 4 general election to fill the vacant seat left by board member Anne Costello’s resignation.

The board voted 4-0 on Monday, with Yolanda Franklin absent and Bob Byers abstaining, to name the fourth-place finisher to serve out the remainder of Costello’s term, which runs through 2028.

Three seats on the board were up for election this year, and the top two finishers were incumbents Kelly Jones and Shannon Kimball. Based on the unofficial count updated Friday, newcomer Matt Lancaster held a 78-vote lead over Byers for the third-place spot; the results will not be official until the canvass on Nov. 17.

The three winners in the election will begin four-year terms in January; the swearing-in ceremony will be on Jan. 12 during a scheduled board meeting.

The board’s meeting agenda said that after Costello’s resignation on Oct. 27, “the board president and past president reviewed the Board Governance and Operating Manual section addressing board vacancies, as well as the application materials and procedures used during the most recent vacancy process in 2022.” In that vacancy process, current board President GR Gordon-Ross was selected to fill the seat of Andrew Nussbaum, who resigned less than seven months after being sworn in. Gordon-Ross had served from 2018 to 2021 but lost his reelection race in 2021 after coming in fourth place behind Nussbaum.

On Monday, before the vote, Gordon-Ross spoke a bit about the thought process in filling the vacancy. He said that “looking at the results of the election, the community very clearly spoke … And the vote totals for the third and fourth place are even now, after election night, are very clearly very close; statistically they’re almost identical.”

“To honor the will of the people and the will of the voters,” he asked the board, “I think the discussion we wanted to have was do we want to … just appoint whoever finishes fourth, because that’s who the community voted?”

Board member Carole Cadue-Blackwood said that since the board is elected by the public to make the district’s decisions, the responsible thing to do would be to look at the election results and name the fourth-place winner to fill the vacancy.

Mike Courtney, who was elected to the Lawrence City Commission in the general election, spoke during the meeting’s public comment period on Monday and said he was supportive of that plan to fill Costello’s seat.

“In 2022, this body selected the runner-up in the 2021 school board race to fill an opening on the board,” Courtney said. “It was the right move then, and it is the right move now. Citizens ask us as elected officials to be transparent and accountable in these important community decisions, and this situation gives you the unique opportunity to reaffirm this positive precedent … The voice of the people should be heard when filling vacancies in our elected bodies.”

photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Mike Courtney and Matt Lancaster attend the Lawrence school board meeting on Monday, Nov. 10, 2025.

In other business, school board members:

• Approved four architecture and engineering service contracts for the expansion of Langston Hughes Elementary School. All four contracts were listed under the meeting’s consent agenda, and the combined total for the contracts is $574,998.

The contracts include a $299,840 contract for architectural services from ACI Boland Architects; a $157,158 contract for engineering and mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection services from Lankford Fendler and Associates Consulting Engineers Inc.; a $60,000 contract for structural engineering and construction administration services from Norton and Schmidt Consulting Engineers LLC; and a $58,000 contract for civil engineering and planning services from Landplan Engineering.

• Approved a 3% increase to the administrative salary pool for the 2025-2026 school year, a total increase of $194,258. According to the agenda, this increase will enable the district to finalize compensation packages for all employee groups for the current school year.

The board has previously approved increases for certified staff and educational support professionals in July and September, respectively. Certified staff — including teachers, counselors, librarians and other education specialists — received a 3.162% increase, or about $1.6 million to their salary pool. ESPs were given a 5.97% increase totaling approximately $1,132,000, which includes a $1 increase to base hourly wages.

• Received an annual update on the district’s Jayhawk Blueprint concurrent enrollment program, which gives high school students opportunities to earn early college credit. There are eight Jayhawk Blueprint courses students can take, and there has been a 34% increase in individual student enrollment since 2019, with 288 students in the 2019-2020 school year to 445 in 2024-2025.

In addition, course enrollment has doubled since 2019. In 2019-2020, there were a total of 560 course enrollments and 1,117 course enrollments in 2024-2025. Course enrollment refers to all enrollments in KU Blueprint courses, meaning some students are taking multiple courses. Students participating in the program complete an average of 2.45 college courses.