The Lawrence school district reported that it gained more new students than it lost in 2024-25 from other countries, private schools and other public schools in Kansas, but it lost more students than it gained to public schools outside of Kansas and homeschooling.

James Polk, director of data and assessment, discussed the student movement with the school board Monday as part of an annual enrollment report. 

Overall in 2024-25, 1,119 new students entered the district and 1,079 students exited, according to the report. There were 10,358 students enrolled total. Exits and entries do not not include the 515 kindergarteners and 874 graduating seniors that year.

The district has a mobility rate of 21%, meaning approximately one in five students moved in or out of the district in 2024-25.

Polk said mobility rates are calculated by dividing the number of mobile students by the total K-12 student population for that year and can factor into student success.

Students who attend the district while residing outside of the attendance boundaries make up 5% of the total student population. Of those 513 students, 121 attend in-person schools, and 392 attend Lawrence Virtual School from outside the district.

Superintendent Jeanice Swift attributed the number of international students in the district to the University of Kansas.

Since the former Broken Arrow Elementary housed the largest Native American student population in the district, board member Carole Cadue-Blackwood said she would like to know which buildings those students transferred to when the board voted to close the school in 2023. 

“I don’t know which school has the most. I don’t know where they went,” Cadue-Blackwood said.

Polk said the district currently tracks former Broken Arrow students in addition to students from the second school closed along with it, Pinckney Elementary. Swift told Cadue-Blackwood that she would follow up.

Additionally, data shows 51% of students set to graduate in the Class of 2026 have been enrolled in Lawrence Public Schools since kindergarten. That percentage is projected to increase around 10% in 2030 and again in 2033.

Class sizes

The average elementary class in the district has 20 to 23 students, according to more enrollment data Polk shared on Monday.

Five classrooms, or around 3% of all elementary rooms, have 28 or more students. Swift said two of those are at Langston Hughes Elementary and three are at Deerfield Elementary, and Polk said those classes have additional teacher support.

A fifth grade class at Langston Hughes with 30 students has the largest size at the elementary level, which Polk said is a result of inadequate physical space. Seven new classrooms will be added to the school as part of an upcoming capital outlay project.

Board member Kelly Jones said she appreciates the progress from previous years, particularly in maintaining middle and high school class sizes while the district implemented more plan time for teachers. However, she said there’s more work to be done and asked how the district plans to keep improving.

Middle school core classes, including English Language Arts, math, science and social studies, have an average of 25 students. High school core classes average from 24 to 26 students. There are some middle and high school teachers who have more than 30 students in their rooms.

“When I see a class size of 34 and you’re an English teacher, and I know that’s one of your classes, and you have five other classes, when I do that math, that’s a lot of papers to grade,” Jones said.

Swift said she initially believed class size stabilization would be a three-year project, but it might take longer. She said administrators and counselors are considering changes to course offerings. Some high school electives, for example, may be limited in the future to only be available in the fall instead of each semester.

“We are first of all trying to ensure that any of those larger class sizes are occurring in high level coursework,” Swift said. “And that doesn’t make it OK, but none of that is occurring with at-risk or high-impact student situations. So I just want to say that up front.”

In other business:

• Fire repairs: The board on Monday approved a $142,393 expense to repair damages from a fire in a Lawrence High School locker room.

Zipco Contracting Inc., a Kansas City-based water and fire damage restoration company, is providing services, which the district must pay for directly. But board President GR Gordon-Ross said the district anticipates a reimbursement on the expenses incurred. The district’s property insurance policy has a $50,000 deductible per incident, so the insurance will likely end up covering the remaining $92,393.

The fire occurred during a school day in September. Staff members and students evacuated the building, and no injuries were reported.

District spokesperson Jake Potter had said the fire was small and contained to the designated girls’ locker room. Two students were arrested the next day in connection with the incident. Neither the district nor the fire department provided information about the cause of the fire.

Maya Hodison (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at mhodison@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.

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