The Lawrence school board on Tuesday approved the district’s capital improvement plan with about $17.3 million in expenditures, mostly involving facility repairs, budgeted for next school year.
With a unanimous vote of 7-0, the board approved the district’s 2024-25 capital improvement plan.
The capital outlay fund includes taxes and proceeds from the sale of district property and equipment. Its funds can only be spent on certain things and generally not on staff salaries or ongoing expenses. The largest chunk — about half of the $17.3 million budget for 2024-25 — is going toward facilities.
Approximately 27% of the $17.3 million budget for 2024-25 will be spent on technology, 9% on equipment and furniture and the remainder on trade wages, schools’ discretion, instruction and activities/athletics.
Executive Director of Finance Cynde Frick said the budget accounts for changes that could be made to project costs and timelines. She said probably in August, everything will be finalized, and her team can provide the board with more actualized spending estimates, as requested by board member Anne Costello.
“We do continue to prioritize certain items year by year,” Frick said. “So while we would like to increase a little bit to all the budgets, what we tend to do is look at our worst case situations. So if that’s roofing right now or asphalt, we do tend to take any additional money and put into those places. But yes, as we go through the years, we’ll start to tweak those.”
Building improvements listed in the report given to the board Tuesday include rooftop HVAC units at Kennedy Early Childhood Center and Cordley Elementary School, boilers at Langston Hughes Elementary School, and roof repairs at Langston Hughes, Cordley and Sunflower Elementary School. Asphalt and concrete repairs will be made at several schools, in addition to construction at playgrounds and tennis courts.
The district recently launched a solar power pilot project at Prairie Park Elementary School. Solar panels have been installed at the school, and the district held a ribbon-cutting on May 17.
Any items or projects that cost more than $20,000 will be bid and then returned to the school board for final approval. Those are typically on the board’s consent agenda — a list of items that are routinely approved in one motion unless a board member or the superintendent requests to pull an item for further discussion.
Learn more on the report attached to the agenda item on BoardDocs.
In other business
• New resource for elementary math: The school district will utilize a new math resource aimed at teaching elementary students problem-solving.
School board members voted unanimously to approve the district’s purchase of the resource, called Open Up. Sabrina Giersch, instructional coach at Sunset Hill Elementary School, said she and her fellow math pilot committee members believe Open Up will offer critical hands-on learning that’ll hopefully translate across all students’ success.
“What this really means is I can show a kid ‘5,’ but can they tell me that it is five ones? Or do they just have the memory of ‘5’? So we really focused in on resources that will help build this conceptual understanding, solving an inquiry, which allows student discussion instead of just rote memorization,” Giersch said.
Having used the curriculum Math Expressions since 2012, the district began its curriculum review process in fall 2023. The math curriculum team researched evidence-based resources and chose two to be piloted. More than 70 educators from five schools participated in the pilot this spring.
“I do want to stress that it has been since 2010 that we went through a curriculum review,” said Denise Johnson, director of elementary curriculum. “Elementary math: We’re ready for a resource.”
The implementation of Open Up will be effective beginning Wednesday, and all elementary schools will participate in the fall. Lawrence Virtual School opted to continue with its current online program, according to Sarah Rand, instructional coach at Quail Run Elementary School.
The district will pay $228,464 from its instructional resource budget during the 2023-24 school year and then pay the remaining balance of $485,385 during the 2025-2026 school year. There were no alternative curriculum options noted in the math pilot committee’s recommendation to the board.
Learn more on the agenda item on BoardDocs.
Note: A misspelled name in this post has been corrected.
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Maya Hodison (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at mhodison (at) lawrencekstimes (dot) com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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