Superintendent

Fall 2024 Community Engagement:
A Community Conversation

 

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Monday, January 27, 2025

 

Hello, Lawrence Public Schools Students, Staff and Community,

It’s an important time in the Lawrence Public Schools as we come together to share the report of the thoughts, perceptions, and ideas received during an expansive community engagement endeavor: Lawrence Public Schools Fall 2024 Engagement: A Community Conversation.

Our deepest gratitude to everyone - students, parents, and families; teachers and staff, school and district leaders; team members from across the organization. Key to this endeavor are also the many individuals from nonprofit, business, higher education, and community leaders who participated in a wide array of community group conversations. Widely varied perspectives and experiences of individuals are reflected in this effort: from fifty-plus-year Lawrence residents, alumni, and staff from a continuum of decades, alongside recent newcomers to our community, parents, and families of our youngest students.

The investment of so many to take time to share their thoughts about our schools is a strong indicator of community care and vibrancy. Principals and team leaders across the organization also organized and convened conversations, and data from those responses added meaningful depth and weight to this work. Thank you to all who committed time and energy to convening a group for conversation and/or to sharing your experiences and insights regarding Lawrence Public Schools.

A strength of this report lies in the vast amount of data, representing the perceptions and experiences of thousands of individuals sharing tens of thousands of thoughts and ideas.

Additionally, the import of this information is also reflected in the clarity of key themes and patterns the data yields. The data reveal a clarity, even a poetry of sorts, with fundamental themes reflected from across many conversations and groups and from within the multitude of thoughts shared.

The timing of this report is also critical; hearing comprehensively from the community now, following the many challenges the district has weathered over recent years, is beneficial to support an openly stated, collective desire to move forward together.

The overall themes reported are those informed by the perceptions and experiences of the many respondents. The key patterns shared are those that resonated widely, and recommended next steps emerge directly from knowledgeable participants. The data speaks powerfully to the collective experience of those who attend, live, work, and give their energy in support of the Lawrence Public Schools.

During the coming weeks of 2025, we will take steps to act in response to the focus areas illuminated from this engagement report; our work over the coming year will be focused to move forward in the directions this report illuminates. Collaboration, innovation, diligence and a disciplined focus will be required to meet the challenges we face as an organization, to turn the page together, and to achieve the priorities articulated here.  Over the coming months, we will check in for ongoing conversation with stakeholders across the community to continue to hear input and feedback on our progress together. 

Robust, successful communities are known for their care for the children and young people served in their high quality public schools. This report is proof that in Lawrence, we are most fortunate to live in such an engaged, vibrant community, one with care for students as our shared and abiding north star, both our direction and our hope.

Thank you for all you continue to do to support the educational experiences of our more than 10,500 students and the remarkable teachers, staff, and leaders who serve them each day. 

Sincerely,

Jeanice Kerr Swift
Interim Superintendent of Schools
Lawrence Public Schools

 

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