The Lawrence school board on Monday heard a report on Lawrence Virtual School, but people who weren’t there in person were unable to listen in. That potentially includes more than 200 enrolled students’ families statewide in addition to 231 Lawrence-area students’ families.
Nothing in the school board meeting agenda indicated that the work session would not be livestreamed, as the board’s regular meetings are and have been for years.
“At this work session, information will be provided regarding funding for virtual schools, state requirements, enrollment patterns, and staffing,” the agenda item stated. “Various virtual school models will be discussed. Teachers will share their experience providing virtual education.”
The report in the meeting agenda included a map that showed where Lawrence Virtual School’s enrolled students are scattered across the state. Though some folks living in the area might have been able to make it to district offices to hear the report, families of more than 100 students in the Johnson County area, 34 in the Wichita area or others scattered as far out as Colby or Garden City or beyond, near the Colorado border likely would not, particularly without warning.
Julie Boyle, a spokesperson for the district, did not respond to an email sent at 5:05 p.m. Monday requesting a link to join the work session via WebEx since the meeting livestream was not working at that time. Ultimately, the livestream wasn’t available until after the work session was over.
“I think you make a valid point that it may have been helpful for families of students attending the virtual school,” Boyle said via email Monday evening. “It’s certainly something the district could discuss for the future.”
Boyle said that “Traditionally, the district has not live streamed school board work sessions.” When a May 8 work session on solar energy was not livestreamed, Boyle said at the time that the district believed there was a technical glitch early in the meeting but that the stream was working after the first few minutes. However, the livestream missed the entire work session and did not begin until after 6 p.m. that evening, during the regular meeting. All other work sessions in recent memory (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) have been livestreamed.
Boyle said there is no recording of the work session, but the presentation and supporting documentation from the work session are available online (see below) as part of the agenda materials, and that a news release would be added to the district’s website Monday evening.
Asked whether any members of the public were able to participate in the meeting via WebEx, Boyle said several LVS teachers who were part of the board presentation attended online, as did board member Carole Cadue-Blackwood.
Here are the PDFs from the Lawrence Virtual School agenda item:
20231023-BOE-Lawrence-Virtual-School-Work-Session20231023-Kansas-Virtual-Education-Requirements-and-Monitoring-Plan
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— Reporter Maya Hodison contributed to this article.
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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