SETTING THE PACE CLASSIC ITALIAN All-area cross country teams named Sports 1B
Downtown eatery keeps it simple Food 10B
L A W R E NC E
JOURNAL-WORLD ®
75 CENTS
7%$.%3$!9 s ./6%-"%2 s
LJWorld.com
City moves forward on expanding rental rules
Prepare for takeoff
By Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
Mike Yoder/Journal-World Photo
PRESCHOOLERS AT THE LAWRENCE ARTS CENTER pretend to be rockets during an exercise with LAC instructor Amanda Clark. Clark’s activity Tuesday at the center was part of the SMART Moves program, available through a grant from the Kansas Health Foundation, to encourage children to get plenty of exercise.
Graduation rate improving in Lawrence By Peter Hancock phancock@ljworld.com
New numbers from the Kansas State Department of Education show the Lawrence school district improved its graduation rate in 2012, with gains showing up in the overall student population and among low-income and minority students. Those numbers show that 88.4 percent of the students who entered high school in the 2007-08 school year graduated on time in 2012. That was an increase from the 82.8 percent “four-year cohort graduation rate” posted the year before. The Lawrence rate was also higher than the statewide average of 84.9 percent.
“
We are very, very proud of our gains in that area. The overall rate is increasing. And the other thing that’s good is the gaps are decreasing. The gap between the all-students category and our students of color, for example, has decreased significantly. And the gaps for our students of poverty have decreased as well.” — Lawrence Superintendent Rick Doll “We are very, very proud of our gains in that area,” Superintendent Rick Doll said. “The overall rate is increasing. And the other thing that’s good is the gaps are decreasing. The gap between the all-students category and
our students of color, for example, has decreased significantly. And the gaps for our students of poverty have decreased as well.” The Lawrence district has relatively small minority populations, which makes
comparisons between those groups and the overall population difficult. In the class of 2012, for example, there were only 70 black students to start with four years ago, and only 27 Hispanic students. As a result, a change of one student in either direction shows up as more than a full percentage point change. But among students who qualify for free lunches, the marker that school officials use to identify economically disadvantaged students, there was a noticeable increase in the graduation rate and a decrease in the gap between them and the allstudent population. Among male students in that group, the graduation Please see RATES, page 2A
Get out your checklist, Lawrence landlords. A majority of city commissioners on Tuesday said they were ready to move forward on a new program that would require every rental unit in the city — all 18,000 of them — to register with the city and undergo periodic inspections for code violations. “I have seen some pretty awful sites in town that need to be cleaned up,” Mayor Bob Schumm said. “I think this is going to be a big step for the community, and a positive step.” At the moment, though, it is a step with a lot of unanswered details. Commissioners did not approve a specific program Tuesday evening. Instead, they CITY directed staff members to pre- COMMISSION pare a report on how to implement a rental registration program that eventually would cover every rental unit in the city. But commissioners said because of the enormity of the task, they understand it may take several years to fully implement the program. Commissioners likely will receive the report in January. Commissioners approved creation of the report on a 5-0 vote, but City Commissioner Mike Amyx indicated he may not be able to support the final plan. He had argued the city should expand the program to inspect only rentals 50 years or older. Currently the city requires only rental homes in single-family-zoned neighborhoods to register, which includes an inspection once Please see RENTAL, page 2A
Downtown bus transfer point set to
change. Page 3A
Students make movie, friends in ‘learning community’ program By Matt Erickson merickson@ljworld.com
In mid-October, 20 Kansas University freshmen were given a charge: Make a movie in a month and a half. None of them was majoring in film. But here in late November, the group has followed through on its mission. The
result, a film titled “Té Buffet of Life,” will be shown at 7 p.m. today in the Kansas Union’s KANSAS Woodruff Au- UNIVERSITY ditorium. The movie was written, directed, acted, produced and edited by those 20 freshmen. And though none of them was an experienced filmmaker,
Business Classified Comics Deaths
Low: 33
Today’s forecast, page 10A
IN THIS SCENE FROM “TÉ BUFFET OF LIFE,” Kansas University freshmen in a Mount Oread Scholars “living learning community” program portray high school students. The film, a high school romantic comedy, was written, directed, produced, acted and edited by a group of 20 students in the program.
Please see FILM, page 2A
Contributed Photo
INSIDE
Not as cold
High: 54
they did have one advantage: They all lived on the same floor of Gertrude Sellards Pearson residence hall. “We were kind of all in it together, and none of us really knew what we were doing, in a way,” said Shelby Golightly, a freshman from Maryville, Mo., who was one of the 20.
7A 1C-8C 9A 2A
Events listings Food Horoscope Movies
10A, 2B 10B 7C 4A
Opinion Puzzles Sports Television
8A 7C 1B-7B 10A, 2B, 7C
Join us at Facebook.com/LJWorld and Twitter.com/LJWorld
xAÉĝ 0ĹäĘx << <Z .C Z` V` ` ¨
ŖŖƦƽƞ
ǟ ÃƉ \ƭʼnƉÃ C ` ¨
ŖŖƦƱǩ
Weight-loss challenge Gov. Sam Brownback kicks off a statewide weight-loss challenge aimed at instilling healthy habits but says he’s not a fan of healthier school lunch standards. Page 3A
Vol.154/No.333 36 pages