Marble Elementary Families Request Relocation to Old Donley During Reconstruction

Photo of Superintendent Dori Leyko by Raymond Holt.

In a letter to the East Lansing Board of Education, a group of Marble Elementary School parents has requested relocation to the old Donley Elementary building for the 2020-21 school year instead of the revamped Red Cedar Elementary.

Marble parent Monica Fink read the letter to the Board and Superintendent Dori Leyko at the Board meeting Monday night. Fink cited several reasons why the 21 signers of the letter would prefer to have their children at the old Donley building, which is currently housing Whitehills Elementary students and staff.

The reconstruction of Marble, at the corner of Hagadorn Road and Burcham Drive, is scheduled to begin in June 2020. It will be the last of the East Lansing Public Schools elementary buildings to be rebuilt.

Donley, located at the corner of Hagadorn and Lake Lansing Roads, is geographically closer to most Marble families’ homes than Red Cedar, which is on the city’s southeast side, near Trowbridge Road.

Donley’s location, say Marble parents, would make it easier to drop off and pick up students and deliver forgotten school-related items (especially for those parents or guardians without daytime transportation). It would also reduce the time children would spend on the bus.

The letter also said the old Donley school is better equipped than Red Cedar to accommodate a large school population.

“We understand sacrifices must be made for the betterment of our District and community and as the last school to be rebuilt, we hope that our lost time in a new school can be made up in an effort to make the transitional school year the easiest it can for our population,” Fink said.

The Marble letter conflicts with an earlier request from a Donley Elementary parent who asked the Board last month to not relocate another school in the old building.

Donley, along with Glencairn Elementary (at the corner of Harrison Road and Saginaw Street) was one of the first new elementary schools to be reconstructed. Because of the available land surrounding Donley, administrators chose to keep the school population in the original building during construction of the new school.

This year, the population of Whitehills Elementary (621 Pebblebrook Lane) is being housed in the old Donley building, doubling the number of students, staff and parents on the property during the day and at pick-up and drop-off times.

In the letter, Marble families expressed concerns about the increased traffic at Donley with two schools on one site and said they “are in communication with East Lansing Safe Routes to School coordinators to potentially come up with a walking school bus plan.”

Leyko told ELi yesterday by email that the Marble swing-school location and Red Cedar plans will be communicated through a letter sent to staff and families, anticipated to go out at the beginning of next week. [Update: See a letter sent out by Leyko on the afternoon of Nov. 15.]

“At this time,” Leyko wrote, “the Board is not planning to take action on these administrative decisions.”

Red Cedar served as the swing school for Glencairn Elementary in 2018-19 and is now playing that role for Pinecrest Elementary in 2019-20.

A committee of educators, parents and residents have been studying different options for programming at the Red Cedar school once it has completed its time as a “swing school.” A recent survey showed most families would choose to remain with their home schools regardless of type of programming at Red Cedar, Leyko said.

Leyko told the Board last month, “Some of the big ‘aha’ takeaways from the survey were that high level of support for early childhood programming [including] both what we have currently and also expanding that potentially to tuition-based preschool, interest in Head Start to rent some of our space, and blended classrooms at Red Cedar.”

Also on Monday, the Board:

• hired Nick Hamilton as the District’s Director of Special Education. He is currently an Associate Principal at East Lansing High School; and
• held a public hearing on updated sex education curriculum. Mary Ellen Vrbanac, sex education director, is proposing to make the curriculum more inclusive of LGBTQ people for the sixth, seventh and eighth graders, and include lessons on both gender identity and sexual orientation. There were no public comments on the hearing. It will go for a vote before the Board in two weeks.