Lawrence district shifts communications leadership after Potter departure

Lawrence Public Schools is changing communications leadership again, just months after rebuilding the department and promising a more efficient flow of information to families. Summer Workman will become the district’s director of communications on July 1 after Jake Potter leaves the post after less than a year, a rapid shift in a role central to board actions, staffing updates and crisis messaging.

Superintendent Jeanice Swift told the school board on May 25 that Workman would take over the job, but the district did not clearly say then that Potter was leaving. On June 1, the district still had not publicly explained the departure, and repeated attempts to confirm the change went unanswered. Potter and Workman both started in August 2025, which makes Potter’s tenure especially short for a position meant to steady the district’s public message.

The staffing move lands after Lawrence schools already spent heavily to rebuild communications. In July 2025, Potter was hired at an annual salary of $137,780 and Workman at $75,281, for a combined cost of $213,000 a year. That restructuring came after longtime communications director Julie Boyle retired on July 1, 2025, ending a 27.5-year run that included more than 748 board meetings. Boyle had handled media relations, staff support and district events, and the district framed the new two-person setup as a way to make communication more efficient.

That efficiency push was tied to a broader effort to centralize messages through ParentSquare during the 2025-2026 school year. District leaders said the platform would serve as a single hub for school, classroom and group communications, part of an attempt to reduce confusion for families who had been juggling multiple channels. Board member Shannon Kimball said the tool could help unify the message, and district leaders said the goal was to keep parents from managing “14 apps.”

The leadership turnover also comes against a backdrop of continuing concern about administration, transparency and spending. A January 2025 community feedback report found that families wanted clearer and quicker communication, while also criticizing too much administration, poor transparency, nepotism and a lack of accountability. The same feedback showed pressure to move money from district offices into classrooms and staff pay.

Since then, the district has kept reshaping its central office. By March 2026, Swift said eight administrative positions had been eliminated, consolidated or left unfilled over just more than a year, and she said the district would keep streamlining without directly affecting classrooms or class sizes. In May 2026, the district and its unions reached tentative agreements that would raise certified staff salaries and lift the education support professional base hourly wage from $15.46 to $20.

For parents and staff already watching labor negotiations, cellphone restrictions and budget decisions, the communications shake-up adds another test of whether Lawrence schools can tell its own story clearly and consistently.