East Lansing Board of Education to discuss reopening Red Cedar Elementary School tonight

Red Cedar Elementary

The East Lansing Board of Education is poised to approve a motion to reopen Red Cedar Elementary School as a preschool – grade 5 STEAM school at their regular monthly meeting tonight (7 p.m. Monday Dec. 14)

The board’s Committee for Educational Programming has been meeting since October to discuss “initiating innovative educational programming at Red Cedar and Donley Elementary Schools.”

The committee’s report was released on their website this afternoon, recommending reopening Red Cedar as an elementary school with preschool through 5^th grade and a Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math (STEAM) focus. (Read the report here.)

They also recommend a “Red Cedar preschool component will feature affordable tuition-based pre-school program.”

Parents who attended the committee meetings feared the proposal will include consolidating all ELL (English-language learners) students at Red Cedar. The report states “the school will serve ELL, Title I and provide other program services for which the population is eligible.”

The report also states that: “The STEAM program will be designed with special attention to the international student population and ELL students and their families.”

The committee hopes to begin preschool programming in the fall of 2016, with k-5 being implemented in fall 2017.

This essentially reverses the moves of the board in 2012 and 2013 to close Red Cedar Elementary and move their students to other elementary schools in the districts. Those students have now been attending different schools for two years. In addition, the staff at Red Cedar Elementary was transferred to Glencairn Elementary School.

In an open letter to the community, parent Stephen Lathom said this proposal will harm the district as a whole.

“The effort to roll back the clock on this issue is doubly destructive. It not only will tear open community wounds, but more importantly it continues to distract us from addressing other challenges we still face,” he wrote, citing the lack of student numbers to fill the shuttered building without hugely disrupting the current structure.

He also took issue with the way the committee ran its meetings by refusing to allow the public to comment. The full Board last month agreed that public comments must be allowed at all meetings of board committees.

The Committee on Educational Programming included School Board members Kate Powers, Karen Hoehne and Kath Edsall. Also on the committee were: East Lansing Schools Superintendent Robyne Thompson, Director of Curriculum Dori Leyko, Rich Pugh, Director of Finance; Donley Principal Tracey Barton, Marble Principal Sarah Scott, Victoria Hall, Elise Palmer and Cheryl Martin from Pinecrest Elementary School; Jodi Brace, Katie Ballard and Kimberly Olsen of Donley; Julie Bungard and Daryl Bean of Glencairn; Rob Voigt of MacDonald Middle School.

The original motion by the Board of Education forming the committee took place Oct. 12. It charged the committee with “initiating innovative educational programming in fall 2016 for pre-K through grade 5 at Red Cedar, as mandated by the 2012 resolution, and on or after fall of 2016 but not later than fall of 2017 at Donley.”

Parent Sarah Preisser has created an alternative idea for programming at Red Cedar which would focus on the need for early childhood education (infant through pre-K) that has substantially increased since the city closed the daycare center in the Bailey neighborhood. She believes that East Lansing schools could partner with Ingham County Intermediate School District and/or Michigan State University to create two distinct programs at Red Cedar.

One would be an Early Childhood Education Center with full and half day programming with a mix of fully tuition funded and scholarship/grant funding. The other program would be a STEAM Immersion Center that would offer one week enrichment experiences for all students throughout the district and neighboring community schools. It could also provide tuition-based camps over school breaks.

As for Donley, the committee doesn’t recommend any new programing there but instead “recommends that Donley Elementary School staff and community efforts be supported to complete the Title I schoolwide planning initiative and integration of the Title I plan with the school improvement plan.”

IN ADDITION: The Board of Education is also holding a special meeting at 5:30 p.m. today (Monday Dec. 14) is discuss holding an elementary bond election in November 2016.