Board moves forward with budget for Red Cedar reopening this fall

The East Lansing School Board heard hours of testimony from parents, teachers and community members Monday night before approving a $564,000 budget allocation to begin the process of reopening Red Cedar Elementary school as a pre-kindergarten through fifth grade STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) school this fall. The Board also passed an amendment stating that any expenditures for Red Cedar would have to be approved by the BOE before that money is actually spent.

The meeting was held in the auditorium of East Lansing High School to accommodate the larger-than-usual crowd.

Richard Pugh, Director of Finance for the East Lansing School District, presented an amended budget that moved $270,000 from the General Fund and $294,000 from the 2013 Capital Projects Fund to cover an initial expenditure of $564,000 to begin the reopening process. See the budget here.

The unexpected increase in the General Fund came largely from an increase in student enrollment (a total of 115 students as opposed to the anticipated 63 students), and a deferred outlay of $500,000 towards the teacher contract settlement. The General Fund monies will cover the projected $270,000 needed for personnel salaries, curriculum materials, and professional development to instruct teachers about STEAM among other things. The Capital Projects Fund from 2013 already contained $294,000 for Red Cedar improvements that will be used for technology expenditures.

This was not an encouraging move for community members who have been urging the Board to undergo a financial analysis before spending money on Red Cedar. Parent Stacey Conlin asked the Board for a much more “intensive cost/benefit analysis” of the District's budget. She conceded the complexity of such an analysis, but reminded the Board they have the necessary experts to do the analysis right in the District. Lack of understanding of budget issues is, according to her, “the mistake the previous Board made.”

Once the revised budget had been presented, the Board shared their thoughts on the decision to reopen Red Cedar as a STEAM school. Board members Nell Kuhnmuench, Yasmina Bouraoui, Kath Edsall, Erin Graham, and Karen Hoene all expressed surprise at the divisiveness their decision has created within the community. They never anticipated such strong negative reaction to a plan that will, in Kuhnmuench’s words, “address overcrowding” in existing K-5 schools and will provide “innovative programming,” something the Board sees as part of their mission.

Although the five Board members felt the negativity of the community is “hurtful,” they assured the audience that they are listening and hearing what people are saying. The full Board has not had the opportunity to discuss the Red Cedar issues yet. They have scheduled a work session, on Monday Feb 1, to do so. The public is welcome to attend that session, to be held at 7 p.m. in the Board Room of the East Lansing High School.

Board members Kate Powers and Hillary Henderson expressed their continued opposition to decisions that have been made about Red Cedar. Henderson is not in favor of reopening Red Cedar, but is in favor of “innovative programming for all students.”

“We should be educating all students, not a select group,” Henderson said, calling for the Board to look at the number of Schools of Choice students the District is admitting because “we can control overcrowding.”

For Powers, the biggest concern is the timeline. To her, there are “too many questions and not enough answers.” She feels her concerns “fall on deaf ears.”

Following Board comments, 43 people addressed the Board. The majority of parents who spoke had children in Donley or Pinecrest schools although all schools were represented by parents and/or teachers. All speakers were supportive of “innovative programming”. Some speakers preferred it be present in all schools not just Red Cedar. Some community members spoke in favor of the wisdom in starting a new program in one school and working out the bugs before going district wide.

Earlier in the meeting, PTO representatives from Marble, Donley, and Whitehills each spoke about the needs of their schools. The needs ranged from increased staffing to materials such as library books to building improvements. Repeatedly, parents and teachers who addressed the Board echoed these needs and asked how the Board could spend money reopening one school before addressing the needs of all students in the District. Colleen Taylor, a Donley parent, expressed her frustration with the $72,000 that would be spent to outfit a new library at Red Cedar while Donley students and parents are “collecting pop cans to buy books” for their library.

Glencairn resident Shannon Schokora shared that she and her husband chose to live in East Lansing because of the school district. They moved in following the reconfiguration in 2014 and assumed the schools were stable. They were drawn to “walkable neighborhood schools, diversity and stability.” Now, Schokora says, “the identity of the District is chaos.”

Pinecrest teacher Lynne Clyma said that students and teachers have settled into the existing configuration. Cllyma said the uncertainty about future plans in the District creates “anxiety” and “the chaos swirling around us every year is exhausting.”

The number of additional Schools of Choice students needed to make Red Cedar a successful venture was estimated by Pugh to be 140 students. This raised concern with parents. Parent Stephen Lathom asked “is that really a neighborhood school?”

“We seemed to have moved past filling open seats to filling seats wholesale. What is the impact on the regional community?” Lathom asked.

A second concern that was expressed frequently during the public comments centered on the Board's proposal to reopen Red Cedar for fall 2016. The STEAM programming has not been used before so it will require time and planning to teach teachers the new program. That conversation has not begun yet. Will Paddock, ELHS Science teacher and district parent, worries that he “hasn’t heard anything about ongoing costs.” Others expressed concern for the “human costs” associated with the decision. Parent Ashley Ahlin reminded the Board that “every additional thing we ask personnel to do takes time away from our students.”

The speakers were not against innovative programming. In fact, they welcome it. Many expressed they are in favor of reopening Red Cedar. The concern expressed was centered on the speed with which the Board is moving to reopen Red Cedar and to implement the STEAM program. Parent Rebecca McAndrews implored the Board to “press the pause button.” She wondered how “we can move forward on a plan that hasn’t been thought through?” Schokora commented that she had asked the Board last week for projected enrollment data. She was told it was not available yet because it has not been analyzed.

“If you haven’t yet analyzed projected enrollment data, what information are you using to push this agenda?” Schokora asked.

Nine residents of the Flowerpot neighborhood spoke to support the reopening of their neighborhood school and to give support to the “innovative programming.” None of these residents have children attending schools in the District, but see the reopening as a way to make their neighborhood more desirable to potential homebuyers and a way to accommodate the new population of international students who will be living in the MSU housing across from the Breslin Center.

An international student with two children who attend Glencairn, shared that he is “very happy” with the current configuration as are other international students. He described the “celebration” that occurs every morning at the Spartan Village bus stop as parents and children meet and wait for the bus to arrive. He invited the Board members to come see the morning celebration. He further urged the Board to talk with the international student community to get their feelings on changes to the school configuration.

Finally, both parents and teachers expressed frustration with the salary freeze that has been in effect for the past two years. Tim Akers, ELHS English teacher and contract negotiator for the District's teachers, recounted that he had been told this year “if {the District} continues on this path, we will be insolvent in three years and an emergency manager will be brought in.” He further noted that “ELPS teachers are in a wage freeze and have not received a full step increase since 2009.” He was surprised by the additional $1.5 million that is now available in the District budget.  So was David Price, a teacher at Marble, who commented “we spoke, pleaded, urged for fair compensation for teachers. Now there’s money? Certainly your teachers deserve more respect than what we’ve seen in the actions of this Board.” Parent Stacey Adams noted that “we can't have strong schools or close achievement gaps if we don't have strong teachers."