UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, January 14, 1994
9
School district may face divisions
Lawrence students may be redistributed
By Cheryl Cadue Kansan staff writer
Debbie Henning thinks that proposed changes in school boundaries will not prepare Lawrence students for the real world.
"This is not the 1950s, it's the '90s," said Henning, whose child goes to Central Junior High School, 1400 Massachusetts St. "And the school board is continuing to promote an all-white school in Lawrence."
Lawrence Unified School District 497 wants to change school boundaries to accommodate two new elementary schools and a new junior high school. But some parents and administrators want the boundaries to balance Lawrence's minority and lower-income students among the schools.
Dan Jaimes, Central principal, said that more than half of Central's 580 students came from lower-income households.
"It's important that the other schools in the district have fair representation of a broad range of minority kids and low socioeconomic kids," he said. "I don't think it's a good plan to overload one school because when you segregate kids into those groups, you don't let the kids have the opportunity to mix with kids that are different from them."
The school district's Boundary Committee drafted three proposals that are based on projected enrollments. The Lawrence School Board plans to make its final decision in February, and the new boundaries would go into effect in 1995, when Southwest Junior High School opens.
Jaimes said that the best proposal would drop Central's number of low-income students from 53 percent to about 40 percent but that the proposal did not give the district a desirable mix of minority and lower-income students.
Susan Wolfe-Shirk, parent of a Central student, said the boundary proposals were not fair to Central or other junior high schools.
Henning said she was in favor of busing students to balance out the
Supporters of the redistricting proposal say it is the most fair in balancing minority and low-income students among Lawrence's junior high schools. Now 53 percent of the students are from lower-income households. This proposal would reduce that number to 40 percent. The Lawrence School Board will decide on the proposal in February.
Supporters of this
Who are the people in their neighborhood?
Proposed district's boundaries
Source: Boundary Committee from the Lawrence School Board
Micah Laaker / KANSAN
schools, but Mick Lowe, principal of West Junior High School, 2700 Harvard Road, said the new boundaries should represent the schools in a manner that reflects the community.
"For junior-high kids who ride the bus and who are in after-school activities, it may be difficult for parents to
pick them up if they're working," he said. "There are certain advantages to going to school as near to home as possible."
A forum to receive public input about the proposed changes will be at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at West Junior High School.
Outside classroom programs growing at School of Law
By Roberta Johnson Kansan staff writer
The School of Law slowly is breaking the first barrier between insisting upon traditional learning in the classroom and allowing students to have practical experience in the work force for college credit.
The school offers credit for courses with projects such as the Defender Project, in which students represent inmates at federal penitentiaries and state institutions.
However, some students want other opportunities to get experience in the workplace for credit.
Diana May, third-year law student from Lamar, Colo., is enrolled in an externship program with the school at the University of Denver this semester. She works for a district attorney in Colorado.
Last semester May took her proposal for transfer of credit to the school's academic committee, which denied the request on the basis that it did not meet the American Bar Association's standards.
Joy Strauss, coordinator of the externship program at Denver, said that the program met the association's standards.
"I was astonished that we were locked in a procedural battle that made us forget about the issue," said Tom Theltorth, second-year law class president, from Topeka.
On Dec. 3, May appealed to the faculty-student assembly, where some members objected to her case on the basis that she had turned in a proposal different from the original proposal she had submitted to the school.
The academic committee later approved eight credits for the externship and an additional two for independent study, said Robert Jerry, dean of law.
Jerry and Allison Cumberbach, president of the Student Bar Association and third-year law student, agreed that there was a need for written procedures. Al Johnson, associate dean of law, said he would work on a notebook of procedural information that would be made available to all law students.
The school also has hired Roscoe Howard, an attorney at the Office of Independent Council in Washington. Howard will help coordinate and expand KU's externship program.
Any future proposed externships from other universities will be taken on a case-by-case basis.
Jerry said that not all schools would have similar standards to KU and that he wanted all externships to have an academic value.
"The faculty-student assembly is the guardian of the value of a law degree," he said.
May said she thought December's meeting was necessary because it brought up issues that the assembly had needed to discuss.
"It's just too bad they had to do it at my expense," she said.
Wichita professor wins antidepressant's approval
By Ashley Schultz Kansan staff writer
Effexor, a new antidepressant, is nearly ready to take its place alongside Prozac, one of the most widely prescribed drugs in the nation, and a professor from the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita helped make it happen.
Sheldon Preskorn is vice chair of the department of psychiatry and has served since 1984 on the Food and Drug Administration Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee. With Effexor, however, he attended committee meetings on behalf of the Wyeth-Ayerst division of American Home Products Corp., Effexor's manufacturer.
The drug received approval from the FDA Dec. 29. He said Effexor could be on shelves as early as March.
Preskorn, director of the Psychiatric Research Institute, which is affiliated with the Wichita branch, began studying Effexor about five years ago. He estimates that he has conducted six studies involving more than 100 volunteers for his research. Preskorn also consulted the company on how the drug should be developed.
John Baughman, chief pharmacist at Watkins Memorial Health Center, said Prozac was a common antidepressant for patients with mild
"I would say it's probably one of the most widely accepted antidepressants that is used on campus," said Baughman.
to moderate depression.
Prozac affects the neurotransmitter in the brain called serotonin, which helps regulate sleep, sexual behavior, concentration, appetite, fluid consumption and energy levels. Serotonin also appears to regulate higher cognitive functions, including moods, Preskorn said.
Preskorn said that antidepressants helped regulate the firing of the neurotransmitters. Effexor targets both serotonin and a second neurotransmitter, morepinephine, which regulates the same activities as serotonin.
Serotonin in clinically depressed people is not properly regulated, he said.
Some patients fail to respond to drugs like Prozac but respond to drugs that work on norepinephrine, Preskorn said.
"In other words, major depression is probably not a single illness but more than one kind of illness," Preskorn said. "And the two neurotransmitters that have been most implicated are norepinephrine and serotonin."
New patients may be more inclined to opt for Effexor's double barrel approach, Preskorn said.
Preskorn is currently studying Efexor's use in children.
Hall renovations to improve access
By Frank McCleary
Kansanstaffwriter
In an effort to make KU's residential halls more accessible to students with disabilities, the Department of Student Housing is making a few changes in the structure of some its buildings.
The department is renovating one building at Stouffer Place Apartments and has plans to renovate Sellards Scholarship Hall and Gertrude Sellards Pearson-Corbin Hall. Sellards and GSP-Corbin will undergo renovations during the summer and will be completed by the fall semester.
Fred McElhenie, associate director of the department, said it was important for the University to have accessible buildings.
Ken Stoner, director of the department, said 25 buildings were scheduled to receive complete renovations.
"We want to make sure that we have the facilities that are accessible since more and more people with disabilities are able to come to school." he said.
The first floor of Building 11 at Stouffer Place
is being lowered so wheelchair ramps will not be necessary, he said.
The basement and first floor of Sellards and the bathrooms on the second and third floors will be renovated. An elevator also will be added.
McElhenie said that the department had received some complaints about accessibility in the past but that those complaints had all been dealt with.
GSP-Corbin will receive a face-lift that will include new windows, exterior wall repairs and a new roof. A ground-level exit will be added to the southwest corner, providing access for wheelchairs.
Complaints have helped the department make improvements, he said.
"It is that kind of feedback we need," he said. Thomas said Amini Scholarship Hall, the newest residential building, was designed to be fully accessible.
But sometimes it is difficult to accommodate everyone, McElhennie said.
"It is that kind of feedback we need," he said.
"It is difficult when you are building to cover all the bases," he said. "Even in the new facilities, we will adapt when a person has a need."
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