ELPS Board of Education to Vote on Rescinding Red Cedar Reopening Plan

The East Lansing Board of Education will vote Monday whether to pull back on the planned reopening of Red Cedar Elementary School, and create a pair of “teacher leader” panels to study future programming in the District.

The Board agenda, released Friday afternoon, includes as the top agenda item:

“A. Rescind Red Cedar Programming. Motion: The Board of Education rescind in its entirety Motion 15-16/109 of December 14, 2015 which approved the recommendation of the Committee for Educational Programming for initiating innovative educational programming at Red Cedar PreK-5 in 2016 and Donley Elementary School as stated.”

The agenda is prepared by Schools Superintendent Robyne Thompson.

In December, the motion to reopen Red Cedar in fall 2016 was moved by Trustee Kath Edsall and approved by a 5-2 vote. Voting against the reopening were Trustees Hillary Henderson and Kate Powers.

The Board will also vote on whether to rescind the budget allotment for reopening Red Cedar, and direct the Finance Director (Rich Pugh) to “obtain the safety inspection of the Red Cedar facility so that any modifications that might need to be made for pre-K/early childhood programs in the fall of 2016 will be known.”

The second item on the Board agenda is to “immediately convene a committee of teacher leaders from the district to continue the pursuit of pre-K/early childhood programming for the East Lansing School District.” The committee will specifically look into “the feasibility of establishing a pre-K/early childhood program at Red Cedar beginning in September 2016.”

The Board will also decide whether to create a similar committee to “continue the pursuit of STEAM (Science/Technology/Engineering/Arts/Math) programming in order to determine both the value of integrating, as well as the best way to integrate, this programming into all or part of the East Lansing Public schools curriculum.” The only deadline mentioned in the motion is that the committee will report to the Board its findings before the beginning of the 2016-17 but it does not mention implementing any STEAM programming in 2016.

The meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m. on Monday night, will again be held in the East Lansing High School Center for Performing Arts to accommodate larger than usual crowds.

Many parents plan to wear East Lansing Trojans attire with “stop sign” stickers to signal to the Board their opposition to reopening Red Cedar Elementary School as a pre-K through 5 school this fall. They also plan to present a petition with close to 700 signatures to the Board.