All seven Lawrence school board candidates answered questions about safety, diversity, equity and inclusion, and school funding at a forum Sunday afternoon.
Three incumbents, Kelly Jones, Shannon Kimball and Bob Byers will face four challengers, ChrisTopher Enneking, Matt Lancaster, Pam Shaw and Molly Starr in the Nov. 4 general election.
The candidates answered questions focused on how to endure future challenges and capitalize on future opportunities to benefit students and educators during the forum hosted by the Lawrence/Douglas County chapter of Women For Kansas, the League of Women Voters of Lawrence-Douglas County and the NAACP, Lawrence Kansas Branch.
Don’t miss a beat … Click here to sign up for our email newsletters
Click here to learn more about our newsletters first
Diversity, equity and inclusion
School board candidates were asked about how to ensure Lawrence Public Schools is a diverse and equitable district despite external attacks on DEI.
Starr said the district has plenty of data about gaps in student achievement, but needs to come up with creative solutions to close those gaps. She argued for more representation among staff to ensure all students feel welcome.
Shaw said the district needed to individualize its approach for each child.
“I feel that we have to be able to tell people they can be what they dream to be and show them that it’s possible,” she said.
Lancaster said schools are the one American institution that everyone has to pass through. He said students need to spend time around people that may not look or act like them.
“That’s something pretty sacred that needs to be preserved,” he said.
Enneking said the district needs to teach its kids resilience. He said Lawrence is losing students and needs to ensure the district is healthy so it can endure outside attacks on education and diversity.
Kimball said big issues like diversity are exactly what’s at stake in discussions about public education. She said they need to make sure the district is transparent and honest about the state of its schools. She promised to always produce data to back up what she says and the decisions she makes.
Jones said diversity is central to the work of the school board. She mentioned how she assisted in writing the district’s equity policy. She said the district should evaluate how it is doing following that charge. She brought up the thousands of students taking dual-credit classes at KU and said the district needed to make sure those students represent the full student body.
Byers hammered home that education itself is equity. He said the president’s decrees are not the law and the district should treat each child with dignity. Byers said he has long served on the district’s equity council.
School safety
School board candidates were asked about an issue that is top of mind for many: school safety. They were asked about their priorities for crafting safety policies in the district.
Candidates discussed a handful of student and staff safety issues, most primarily the risk of gun violence in schools, but also mental health, staff background checks and federal attacks on vaccines. Some candidates also mentioned a former Prairie Park Elementary School employee who has been charged with sexually assaulting seven children.
Jones said student safety is the issue that keeps her and district leaders up at night. She said her work as a mental health professional has influenced her advocacy around creating safe places for students. She said student safety is a priority for the board and they are constantly working to improve.
Kimball agreed with Jones and said she always wants to be available to listen and learn when people perceive that the district hasn’t created a safe space. She said it is a continuous improvement process.
“I don’t want our schools to feel like prisons,” she said. “Oftentimes, when something goes wrong, that’s everybody’s first response is: You’ve got to lock it down. You’ve got to harden every space. You’ve got to do all those things. Our schools should not feel like that. Our schools should be welcoming places.”
Byers said he spent 40 years in child welfare dealing with issues of child safety. He said the district is in a good place as far as its safety systems, but the issue is when you lock schools down, you lose a part of that safety. He argued schools must partner with parents and the broader community.
Enneking argued that good policy isn’t worth anything if it is not enforced. He said he wants to create a volunteer program to support staff who are struggling. Enneking said he has experience working in Lawrence schools as a paraeducator.
“You can only solve a problem that you can look at in the eye,” he said. “Our teachers know better than our policymakers.”
Shaw said the country isn’t doing what it should to protect students. She argued it’s not just about guns, but also about mental health. She also voiced her support for vaccines, which have been under attack from federal officials. She said it was a safety issue for students and staff.
Starr said there were many different elements of safety. She said she wanted to explore architectural solutions to safety for gun violence, increased background checks for staff and the district’s sexual assault policy. She also said she wanted to ensure students and staff aren’t threatened by ICE agents and people are informed of their rights.
Lancaster said his background as an educator led him to have to intervene in violent confrontations, so the issue is front of mind. He mentioned bathrooms at Lawrence High School, many of which are locked throughout the day. He said the district needed to come up with a consistent policy for bathroom access. He also voiced support for increased communication with staff and families.
“I can’t tell you how many of the issues that evolved into weapons or violent school issues started because of something on TikTok or Snapchat,” he said. “I think we need to have a really serious conversation with families about the role of cell phones in their child’s life as it pertains to school.”
Kansas Legislature attacks
School board candidates were asked about two state political events that will occur during their term if elected.
First, the Kansas Legislature is currently developing a new school funding formula to debut in 2027 after the current system expires.
Also, Kansas voters will decide whether to implement a system of direct election for Kansas Supreme Court justices. Currently, justices are appointed by the governor and face retention elections every six years.
Enneking reiterated the need to ensure the district is prepared to fight for what it values. He said the district needs to focus on regaining the students it has lost in recent years as enrollment has declined.
Starr said she was against the direct election of state supreme court justices because it would open them up to influence from money. She said she was against any introduction of vouchers or programs that send public money to private schools that may appear in the new state school funding system.
Shaw said the Legislature intentionally shielded the supreme court vote in a primary election, similar to its strategy during Kansas’ Aug. 2, 2022 abortion amendment vote. She said she hoped people would get out and vote anyway.
She argued the district needs to be very vocal about why direct election of justices is a problem for public schools. She said the state is not fully funding education, specifically special education, and the district would need to fight attacks from the Legislature.
Lancaster said it was a horrible idea to directly elect state supreme court justices, citing the way the national Supreme Court has “been weaponized.” He said the district needed to consider how to support political mobilization. He said vouchers have been an awful idea since their inception.
Jones said election of state supreme court justices is bad for public education. She said it highlights the value of nonpartisan entities like school boards. The board, she said, can act on what’s best for teachers and students without partisanship getting in the way.
“That’s absolutely one of the reasons I’m running again, because of what’s happening in the federal government,” she said. “… We can no longer trust our Department of Education to ensure the civil rights of the students in our community.”
She said the state’s school funding formula is essential to paying teachers and support staff more. She said the past challenges of the district like school closures, declining enrollment and state and federal attacks point to the need to attract families to Lawrence.
Byers said the board regularly engages with school funding challenges. He said the lack of funding for special education causes the district to spend millions out of its general fund that should be funded by the state.
Kimball said she spends all day, every day advocating for public education. She spends lots of time in Topeka advocating for the Kansas Association of School Boards. She argued the state doesn’t want its supreme court politicized, because the court has been holding the Legislature accountable and ensuring it has a good funding formula for schools.
“This is a fight for the future of our public education system in Kansas,” she said. “The skill and expertise that I have is going to be critical to this, and I am going to keep inviting all of you into this advocacy with me, because I can’t do it alone.”
About school board positions
School board members are volunteers who serve four-year terms. The positions are nonpartisan.
“The Lawrence Board of Education’s primary duties include setting educational policy, approving the district’s budget, and hiring and evaluating the Superintendent of Schools,” the forum event page summarized.
How and when to vote
School board seats were not on the primary ballot, but they will be on voters’ Tuesday, Nov. 4 general election ballots.
Lawrence voters will also elect two city commissioners. Bob Schumm, Kristine Polian, Bart Littlejohn and Mike Courtney earned the most votes out of 13 candidates in the primary earlier this month, and all four will appear on the November ballot.
Douglas County voters can register quickly, update their registration and/or request a mail ballot online at KSVotes.org.
Oct. 14 is the deadline to register to vote or update voter registration for the general election. Advance in-person voting runs from Oct. 15 to noon Nov. 3. Folks can apply for an advance ballot to vote by mail through Oct. 28.
Visit the county website, dgcoks.gov, for more voting information.
If local news matters to you, please help us keep doing this work.
Don’t miss a beat — get the latest news from the Times delivered to your inbox:
Click here to learn more about our newsletters first
Cuyler Dunn (he/him), a contributor to The Lawrence Times since April 2022, is a student at the University of Kansas School of Journalism. He is a graduate of Lawrence High School where he was the editor-in-chief of the school’s newspaper, The Budget, and was named the 2022 Kansas High School Journalist of the Year. Read his complete bio here. Read more of his work for the Times here.
More Election 2025 coverage:
Nathan Kramer / Lawrence Times
Nathan Kramer / Lawrence Times
Latest Lawrence news:
Nathan Kramer / Lawrence Times
Molly Adams / Lawrence Times
