photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Superintendent Jeanice Swift speaks with Lawrence school board members on Monday, June 22, 2026.

Expanding preschool access and college-credit opportunities and improving employee retention are among the biggest goals that Lawrence school district leaders have for the 2026-2027 school year, the school board heard on Monday.

Superintendent Jeanice Swift shared her end-of-year report with the board and spoke about the district’s accomplishments in the past school year and its ongoing initiatives and priorities for the next one.

One thing the district is working on is improving access to college coursework through the University of Kansas with the Jayhawk Blueprint partnership. In 2026-2027, Lawrence Virtual School students are expected to gain greater access to the program, and English composition courses will be added beginning in the spring semester, with potential future expansion into math and biology courses.

On the other end of K-12 education, the district will open preschool classrooms at more elementary schools in the coming year. In 2025-26, the district opened preschool classrooms at Sunflower and Woodlawn elementary schools, and new classrooms will open at Deerfield and Prairie Park in 2026-2027. The district’s long-term goal is to provide enough classes to serve every preschool-age child in Lawrence through a combination of neighborhood-based classrooms and expanded programming at Kennedy Early Childhood Center.

Other significant initiatives the district is working on include the launches of the Centennial Choice Campus and the Family Engagement Center in August. Centennial will provide a more personalized high school experience for students who need alternative pathways to graduation, and the Family Engagement Center will act as a one-stop location for connecting families with community resources.

Monday’s report also highlighted efforts to improve employee pay and retention. For 2026-2027, the district approved salary pool increases of 8.3% for certified staff and nearly 11.9% for educational support professionals, as the Journal-World reported, and the presentation on Monday said the district is continuing its work on competitive staff compensation.

District leaders highlighted positive trends among staff. Turnover of certified employees such as teachers has declined in the last four years, Monday’s presentation said, reaching 9.2% in 2025-2026. In 2022-2023, the number of certified employees leaving the district was 177, but last school year it was 81.

“I’m really excited about looking at the exit rate of 9.2%,” school board member Carole Cadue-Blackwood said. “That is very telling about the good work that we’re doing and just lets the community know that we are listening … and we are reading the data.”

For substitute teachers, the district ended 2025-2026 with a 95.5% substitute fill rate, or the percentage of teacher absences that are successfully covered by a substitute teacher. That’s an increase from 92.6% in 2024-2025, despite more employee absences and more substitute requests, according to Monday’s presentation.

Board member Shannon Kimball said oftentimes it can be hard to remember how far the district has come from where it started.

“This was a very nice reminder of exactly how much progress we’ve made on some really big goals over this past year, particularly with our teacher and education and support staff compensation,” Kimball said.

IN OTHER BUSINESS, BOARD MEMBERS:

• Approved property liability insurance for the 2026-2027 school year through the Kansas Insurance Cooperative for Schools in an estimated amount of $1,480,000. This coverage includes buildings, contents, musical instruments, premises liability, employee benefits liability, money and securities at each location, cyber liability, pollution liability, automobiles and other mobile equipment. The current policy is set to expire on July 1, 2026.

• Approved a change order for Mammoth Sports Construction LLC to complete the remodel of the press box at Free State High School in the amount of $71,824. As the Journal-World reported, board members approved a bid of $390,500 with a 10% contingency of $39,050, for a total project cost of $429,550.

During construction, it was discovered that there was significant deterioration of the existing structural framing and “substrate materials.” The cost of these repairs exceed the available contingency funds, so additional funds were needed to complete the repairs.

• Approved a three-year athletic training service contract with LMH Health totaling $109,200. The district has a long-standing partnership with LMH’s orthopedic and sports medicine program, OrthoKansas. The program provides athletic trainers at each of the high school campuses on a daily basis Monday through Friday.

Each year will have a cost of $36,400 plus the mileage incurred when traveling to and from school events, and the contract covers the period of Aug. 1, 2026 through July 31, 2029.

• Held an executive session to conduct Superintendent Jeanice Swift’s quarterly June evaluation. No action followed the executive session.