The Lawrence school board on Monday will hear an update on the district’s Redesign schools.
The “Kansans Can School Redesign Project” is a statewide initiative that intends to change the way schools function and approach education to better fit a changing society. Initially, the State Department of Education has asked individual schools to apply to be part of the program; however, all schools statewide are expected to become involved within the next several years.
Four Lawrence schools, Free State High School and Broken Arrow, Hillcrest and Deerfield elementaries, became part of the program following staff votes in 2019. Because of pandemic delays, their rollouts of Redesign initiatives started in earnest in the 2021-22 school year.
The report to the board will provide an overview of what each school is doing, what’s working and what isn’t, and what the schools plan to do next year. Two of the four Redesign schools — Broken Arrow and Free State — will also have new principals next year.
In other business, as part of the board’s consent agenda — a list of items that are considered routine and are generally approved with one vote, unless a board member or the superintendent asks to pull something for discussion — the board will consider a personnel report that includes 30 teacher resignations to go into effect May 26. Between the April 11, April 25 and May 8 meeting agendas, the reports include about 70 teacher resignations, plus numerous other educators.
The meeting will start with a closed-door session for the board to discuss contract negotiations. The agenda indicates that executive session will last about 20 minutes.
The meeting will start at 6 p.m. Monday at district offices, 110 McDonald Drive. Meetings are open to the public, livestreamed on the district’s YouTube channel and broadcast on Midco channel 26. Full meeting agendas are available at this link.
To give public comment virtually during the board meeting, email PublicComment@usd497.org by 6 p.m. on the day of the meeting to sign up to participate by Webex video/phone conferencing.
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark (at) lawrencekstimes (dot) com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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