The Lawrence school board will meet Tuesday, because of the Memorial Day holiday on Monday, to consider approving several items on the consent agenda.
There were no reports or new business items on the board’s agenda as of Monday afternoon.
One item on the meeting’s consent agenda — a list routinely approved in one motion unless a board member or the superintendent pulls an item for discussion — is a proposed elementary handwriting program.
Handwriting Without Tears is “based on innovation and research to provide developmentally appropriate, multisensory strategies” to help young students learn to write letters, according to the agenda item. The district previously used the curriculum, and the Literacy Leadership Team recommended its return.
The contract for Handwriting Without Tears is for an amount not to exceed $70,000 and would be paid from the district’s Student Revolving Materials budget, a special fund for program expenditures.
Other items include a purchase to install an updated HVAC system at the district offices, repairs to fire sprinkler systems at several schools, an authorization to sell excess MacBooks after the board recently approved switching back to MacBooks from iPads for high schoolers, and an extension of a secondary English Language Arts curriculum resource.
The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 27 at district offices, 110 McDonald Drive.
To give public comment during the board meeting, sign up by noon the day of the meeting either in person or by emailing [email protected]. Commenters may request to participate by Webex video/phone conferencing. The noon signup for public comment is a change from previous procedure, which allowed people to sign up at any point before the meeting began.
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, via go.boarddocs.com.
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Maya Hodison (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at [email protected]. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
