photo by: Screenshot/Jayhawk Rotary Club
Lawrence Public Schools Superintendent Anthony Lewis speaks Monday, Jan. 18, 2021, at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day community breakfast hosted by the Jayhawk Rotary Club at Maceli s banquet hall.
Lawrence Superintendent Anthony Lewis is a long way from Montgomery, Ala. the “Cradle of the Confederacy” where he began his teaching career. Now, he’s a leader in a community that was founded as part of the struggle to end slavery.
Regardless of its founding by abolitionists, Lawrence still has a lot of work to do on racial justice and ought to find some of that long-ago urgency of its founders, Lewis told a crowd Monday morning at an event honoring the late civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.
photo by: Meeting screenshot/Lawrence school board
Lawrence school board members, teachers and administrators discuss teacher workload issues and possible solutions in a breakout group during the board s meeting on Monday, Jan. 11, 2021.
The Lawrence school board has started brainstorming some ways to help decrease teachers’ workload at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing educators to adapt to teaching remotely and running hybrid classes.
Leah Wisdom, the district’s director of equity, instruction and student services, told the board at its meeting on Monday that the pandemic had made the teaching profession more difficult. She said COVID-19 required teachers to learn to use new and unfamiliar technologies to teach their classes, and that their “tried and true” teaching methods that worked when students were in the classroom were now less effective, among other issues.
Historic neighborhood named for slave owner wants new name Follow Us
Question of the Day By - Associated Press - Thursday, January 7, 2021
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) - Residents of a historic area of Lawrence want to ditch their neighborhood’s name because it honors a slave owner.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports that the Pinckney Neighborhood Association announced this week that it is now taking suggestions for a new name.
The neighborhood was spurred to consider a name change as a response to civil unrest felt throughout the country this past summer after the death of a Black man, George Floyd, at the hands of Minneapolis police.
Staff Report
Tony Barron
The Lawrence school district will be looking for a new facilities director as their current one has chosen to leave the position for a job in Johnson County.
Tony Barron, the district’s executive director of facilities and operations, is resigning from the position on Jan. 29, the district announced in a news release. He has accepted a similar position for the Blue Valley school district in Overland Park.
The district’s facilities and operations department oversees the district’s buildings, grounds, custodial, and maintenance functions. The district also credits Barron, who has been in the position since 2013, for overseeing many facility improvement projects in the district, including the ongoing $46 million renovation of Lawrence High School.