Welcome to First Bell, a K-12 education blog where you can find helpful or interesting notes about schools across Lawrence. The first day of school is right around the corner, so here's to putting the summer behind us and looking forward to the new school year. **New look for a new ...

By now, all registered voters living within the Lawrence school district should have received the materials necessary to participate in the district's mail-ballot election concerning its local option budget. Voters have until noon Jan. 27 to return their ballots to the Douglas County clerk's ...

The state's largest teachers union announced this week (sort of) that it plans to launch a legal fight over teacher tenure rights. But it will be doing so in a clouded judicial environment where two recent court rulings have gone in opposite directions. The Kansas National Education ...

In a case that is resonating with many teachers in Kansas, a judge in North Carolina last week struck down that state's new law that does away with traditional teacher tenure. As reported by the [Raleigh News & Observer][1], Superior Court Judge Robert Hobgood ruled that the law, enacted ...

I've been covering the Lawrence school board for almost two years now. Before that, I spent the better part of the previous 23 years covering government bodies of all other types - from city councils and county commissions to the Kansas Legislature and, occasionally, some congressional ...

A northeast Kansas legislator was recorded on camera over the weekend telling constituents that Kansas has the fourth worst educational system in the country, based on student test scores, while spending more than any other state on public schools - claims that are directly contradicted by ...