Education
by Mackenzie Clark
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Lawrence school board members on Monday will hear a report on students’ performance on state testing and what budget changes the district believes will help to improve the metrics.
District and Building Needs Assessments are required under a state law that Gov. Laura Kelly signed in May 2022, Senate Substitute for HB 2567.
The assessments are supposed to identify barriers for all students to “achieve proficiency above level 2 for grade-level academic expectations on the state assessment”; budget actions and reallocations of resources that the district should take to address those barriers; and how much time the school board estimates it will take for all students to achieve level 2 proficiency if those budget actions are implemented, according to the agenda item.
A presentation in the school board’s agenda materials included preliminary data on assessment results for the 2023-24 school year.
Overall, about 66% of district students are scoring at or above level 2 on English language arts and math assessments, and about 61% are scoring 2 and above on science assessments, according to the agenda item. Broken into subgroups, however, the data shows disparities in the scores of students of color, students with disabilities, English language learners and students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunches.
A link to the full draft needs assessment went to a Google Drive file that was not accessible to the public as of Sunday afternoon, but the presentation is below.
Each school must also have two to three building goals for the 2024-25 school year. Those goals are due Aug. 1, according to the agenda item.
The school board will meet at 6 p.m. Monday, June 10 at district offices, 110 McDonald Drive. Meetings are open to the public, livestreamed on the district’s YouTube channel,youtube.com/@USD497, and broadcast on Midco channel 26. Full meeting agendas are available on BoardDocs viago.boarddocs.com.
To give public comment during the board meeting, sign up before the meeting starts, either in person or by emailing PublicComment@usd497.org. Commenters may request to participate by Webex video/phone conferencing.
Here’s the presentation on the needs assessment from the agenda item on BoardDocs:
20240610-USD-497-2024-25-Needs-Assessment-Presentation-.pptx
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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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