East Lansing School Board, like students, plans to get back to in-person work

Board also approves lunch table dividers for schools

East Lansing’s school board might follow students’ example and resume in-person meetings.

Trustee Debbie Walton proposed at the board’s Feb. 22 meeting that, with students heading back to school, board members head back to live meetings. She noted Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s string recommendation that school open by March 1. It was Whitmer who, in March 2020, issued an order exempting school boards from the Michigan’s Open Meetings Act’s requirement that they meet in person.

Requiring the board to meet virtually while encouraging students to attend school in-person and for staff to work in-person sends a mixed message to the community and staff, Walton said. 

Her resolution asked Whitmer and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services for the option to meet virtually, in-person, or a combination of the two beginning immediately. 

Martin said board members have been working on a plan, “Including which spaces that we can use, how we can take advantage of some of the health and safety measures that are already in place in our buildings and also permit the public to participate virtually as we’ve been doing throughout the course of this pandemic.”

The committee doesn’t have a firm plan yet but is ready to move as soon as they’re permitted to do so.

Walton raised a concern about whether board members would be vaccinated and said she wouldn’t feel safe returning to in-person meetings unless vaccinated. 

The resolution to let school boards meet in person was approved unanimously.

In other business, the board approved $36,000 to buy 80 cafeteria table dividers from Custer Office Furniture for New Donley, Glencairn, Pinecrest, Red Cedar and Whitehills schools.

Superintendent Dori Leyko said the high school and middle school are not serving lunch, so they don’t need any dividers.