The Emporia School District’s Enrollment Study Work Group had its latest meeting Wednesday night.
The Emporia School Board opened up its regular meeting with a roughly 90-minute dive into ways the district can adjust, whether to bring more students into the district or by making sure the district is teaching students to the best of its ability. Work Group members, who hadn’t officially met since mid-June, listed several potential priorities for the district moving forward, including redrawing school boundaries, enhancing childcare opportunities and increasing professional development. Superintendent Allison Anderson-Harder says the district isn’t waiting for the group’s final report to implement solutions, including childcare.
Marketing, another goal of the Work Group, is also being handled in part through the development of a new district website.
Anderson-Harder says redrawing school boundaries will see more discussions, in part because of the district’s policy of “grandfathering” students in their respective schools the last time boundaries were moved and in part because of the state’s new open enrollment rules.
Meanwhile, board members got an update on the district’s lockdown policy from Director of Human Resources Jared Giffin. He says this was designed to dispel any community confusion about district policies.
The district has three lockdown levels, starting with Level 1 for threats outside a given school. Level 2 is for safety concerns either in or near a school building. Level 3 lockdown involves active shooters, extremely unruly intruders or some other severe threat that jeopardizes the safety of students and/or staff.
The conversation on lockdown policy followed a lockdown Sept. 20 involving Emporia High, Emporia Middle School and the USD 253 Transitions program at Flint Hills Technical College.
In other business, the board:
*Approved a plan to replace the curbs and parking lot in front of Emporia High. Estimated cost is nearly $700,000.
*Approved the bid process for a partial roof replacement at the high school
*Approved the purchase of four pedestrian crossings from Gades Sales at a total of over $40,000.
*Approved a contract with Final Site to update the district’s website at a total cost of almost $61,000. The updated website could launch by April.
