Lawrence school board members and district administrators are looking at a declining birth rate, an ever-increasing cost of living and a shortage of housing as factors in shrinking enrollment.
Molly Adams / Lawrence Times
Newcomers Mike Courtney and Kristine Polian won the race for Lawrence City Commission, and incumbents Shannon Kimball and Kelly Jones held strong to their Lawrence school board seats Tuesday night. The third school board seat was too close to call.
Since 2020, Lawrence has gone from staffing three animal control officers to one, and pressure has mounted for the Lawrence Humane Society and the public to fill in the coverage gaps.
August Rudisell/Lawrence Times
Construction of single-family homes in Lawrence continued to decline in 2024, reaching a new low with only 57 permits granted by the city. At the same time, sale prices have continued to rise.
As the dust settles on this year’s historic election, here’s a precinct-by-precinct breakdown of how Lawrence and Douglas County voted in races from U.S. president to the city ballot question to increase the affordable housing sales tax.
The Lawrence City Commission’s budget hearings are coming up Tuesday. City staff members asked residents to help inform the budget process. Did they listen to what people said?
As the Lawrence school board is poised to approve an interim superintendent contract with a salary equivalent to $235,000 over a full year, here’s a glimpse at how superintendent pay compares across several districts.
Lawrence teachers spent years with wages near the bottom compared to similar sized school districts, along with large pay gaps relative to administrators. But recent efforts to raise teacher wages have helped teacher salaries move closer to other districts.
For four years before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the gap between administrators’ salaries and teachers’ salaries in Lawrence Public Schools grew bigger and bigger. That trend has started reversing, but there’s still frustration about the gap.
All of the 10 largest districts in Kansas saw their enrollment drop during the pandemic-riddled 2020-21 school year; all but Lawrence have bounced back to see some enrollment growth in the last few years.
