LASD Board Meeting, October 17, 2022: The Secret Cull

[XLFD]

The October 2022 regular meeting of the Ludington Area School District (LASD) Board was a lot less contentious than the one held in October 2021.  At that meeting, a couple of dozen students politely protested outside the high school's auditorium, hoping for the board to relax the mask mandates imposed on them.  Inside many community members made their opinions known, most notable a small group of female high schoolers that respectfully related the issues they had with the policy.  

The board would relax the mask exceptions permitted but would wait four more months to finally retract the policy.  Normalcy is slowly returning, which was reflected by this meeting's agenda showing five action items that were more-or-less routine for school boards.  At the meeting's convening, at 6 PM in the OJD Middle School library, they added one controversial item to act on, one that would have likely packed the library which already had about two dozen in attendance.  This was the last item to be considered this evening so let's visit what happened before that.

Two presentations were given this evening, the first was by Mike Hart, the school's principal, who related that this Thursday and Friday would mark the first two parent-teacher conference days they have had since COVID struck.  He proudly noted that Ludington's 8th grade scored highest in their EIDEX class featuring 9 other schools of similar demographics in the PSAT.  He introduced J.R. Schoon who noted that 8th grade camp would go from $200 to $250 per child, but that it has been a great experience in the past, where over 90% of the class participates in the camping experience.

Tim Keith, LHS Spanish teacher then spoke of the success of last year's Ecuador class trip, before noting that he had to do a lot of research this year to find a good value due to inflation.  He had settled on a class trip to Peru this year showing the best value at about $4300 for an event-filled trip.

Three people commented.  Dave French led off, noting that he coached sports and had a couple of kids in the district.  He made the point respectfully that it was hard for him to schedule gymnasium time for his teams since there was effectively a loss of three gyms when the district transitioned to the new elementary school.  He was hoping to be able to arrange more time with the inclement seasons coming.

Brian Hosticka, Democrat candidate running for the 102nd District against Curt VanderWall, introduced himself as such and mentioned some pet issues, but went a bit further in describing how school boards were under attack by the other party using a variety of bogus issues like critical race theory, boys in girls' sports, grooming kids, etc.   He suggested those who would bring those issues up were demonizing schools and likely running for office.  I'm not running for anything, but this served as a great introduction to my comment, which was unfortunately missed by Mr. Hosticka since he left the meeting immediately after his comment-- thereby showing that he was more interested in the political exposure than the actual business of the meeting.

XLFD:  "I was reading the most recent update from the Thrun Law firm, the district's counsel, dated June 6, 2022, in regard to transgender student issues.  They say:  Although no Michigan or federal statute expressly prohibits discrimination based on a person’s transgender status or gender identity, state and federal guidance encourages school officials to protect transgender students from discrimination and harassment by supporting requests for name changes and facilities access.

Furthermore, Thrun states the Michigan State Board of Education's guidance notes that the student is the best person to determine their own identity and encourages schools to (1) make changes to student records and in the student information system to reflect a student’s preferred name and pronouns, (2) provide access to sex-segregated facilities that align with a student’s gender identity.

Thus, our law firm believes that if a biological male student self-identifies as a female that he could legally use the girl's bathroom and locker room facilities.  Many parents believe that their daughters have the right to use these facilities without sharing them with biological males suffering from gender dysphoria, or merely saying they do.  Can any of you clarify whether this is Ludington's current policy?  Nothing in the school's bylaws seem to suggest Thrun's guidance is not the dominant policy."

While I would not receive any attempt at an answer during or after the meeting, Superintendent Kyle Corlett did respond to an email regarding district policy by writing back this morning:

"Regarding the use of bathrooms, the school board does not have a specifically written policy. However, there are related policies. All schools have a policy stating that the district will not "discriminate based on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity), disability, age, religion, height, weight, marital or family status, military status, ancestry, genetic information, or any other legally protected category, (collectively, "Protected Classes")." This policy is required by law.

Also, schools have to consider the rights of all students. Here's an excerpt from policy 5780 - STUDENT/PARENT RIGHTS- "The Board of Education recognizes that students possess not only the right to an education but the rights of citizenship as well. In providing students the opportunity for an education to which they are entitled, the District shall attempt to offer nurture, counsel, and custodial care appropriate to their age and maturity. The District shall, at the same time, guarantee that no student is deprived of the basic right to equal treatment and equal access to the educational program, due process, a presumption of innocence, free expression and association, and the privacy of his/her own thoughts."

Overall, it's not a bad answer to my question; it suggests that they would weigh the rights of all students involved if the situation came up.  To my knowledge, this hasn't been an issue here yet, but it's always nice to know the policy beforehand, or the lack thereof.

Corlett offered the Soaring Oriole award to Allison Helminski, in attendance, and updated the board on the phases of construction in the very building we were in.  It was pointed out that the library we were in had actually been repurposed into a classroom during this phase.

Policy updates were given their first reading (more on this at the next meeting), but the board conducted their five action items:

1) Paid $437,836 of the 2019 bond money for recent constructions

2) Designated Superintendent Corlett as the School Safety Liaison Officer

3) Approved two contracts with one action:

   a)  $643,000 for multimedia systems with Bridges of AV

   b)  $1,083,000 for security/communications systems, clocks with Moss 

4)  Approved listing the old skate park at 510 Sixth Street with realtor Mary Jo Pung

5)  Approved paving bid with Rieth-Riley to pave the new fuel station area

It was revealed that the reason why they decided to sell the old skate park property was because the City code enforcer had came around and ticketed them for not mowing the small amount of grass on the lot.  The ironic part is that the lot was originally a gift from the City to the school when the new skate park was built at the beach.

The final action item, added late, was to approve the deer cull taking place on school property in the school forest area to the immediate west and south of the new elementary school.  The board would unanimously approve the measure, providing the City is able to supply the district with liability insurance for the occasion, insurance which still hasn't been provided.

Communications received through a FOIA request shows that the last exchange between the district and the city occurred on October 6th where it was understood that if the City approved the deer cull on the 10th, that the school would be expected to review the city's request to use school property at this meeting.  Surprisingly, the topic was never added to the committee's agendas during last week and was added after the 15th, when the regular agenda was published. 

It looks suspiciously as if they added this at the last minute so as to not get objections from the public for using school property as culling land, much in the same way they approved of the sale of Foster School property, valued at $240,000 by realtors, when a $20,000 bid was offered, and details were left off the agenda.  The deed was done before the public knew what was going on.