ELPAT Hopes to be Part of Force that Pushes ELPS Past Last Year’s Issues

The Jan. 30 East Lansing Board of Education meeting was pivotal for the East Lansing Public Schools District (ELPSD) and ignited a spark for parent and citizen advocacy.

The meeting drew hundreds of attendees, saw the resignation of board President Kath Edsall and marked a key moment in the district’s efforts to overhaul safety measures. Through it all, the emotional remarks of parent Shari Brooks stood out.

The meeting followed a string of fights at East Lansing High School (ELHS), including one where a student accidentally dropped a gun in front of a teacher. That incident was followed by at least five other reported incidents and led to the school being closed on Jan. 27 to finish investigations, make plans for improved safety and hold meetings with the families of students involved in past incidents.

The fights were primarily between two groups of students. Brooks said her son had been involved in the feud. But because he had been placed in the Graduation Alliance program the previous school year, he no longer attended classes in the high school.

At the Jan. 30 meeting, Brooks said she had known about the feud for some time and that strategies being employed by the district were not working. She said the kids were Little League Baseball teammates at one time and they needed to get in a room together to resolve their issues.

While Brooks was met by applause after her remarks, what was not apparent was that her speech had set something much bigger in motion. After the meeting, other parents approached Brooks. Some had children who were involved in the feud, while others did not. The parents agreed to stay in touch and do what they could to fix the ongoing issues.

A community was built on a night of tragedy.

The East Lansing Parent Advocacy Team was born on the night of the mass shooting at Michigan State University (MSU) on Feb. 13.

A board of education meeting was in progress in the ELHS auditorium when the tragedy began unfolding. Attendees were sheltered in place and could not leave the school.

While some parents had been in contact after the large meeting weeks earlier, more parents began talking with each other while locked down in the auditorium. Parents found they had different backgrounds and experiences, but wanted the same thing – to improve the culture in East Lansing Public Schools.

This was the moment when ELPAT officially came together with the goal of taking the dozens of parent voices that had been heard at board meetings and bringing them together to communicate through a single channel.

“The focus is to utilize the gifts and talents of the community to identify, review, curate, implement and sustain a true academic experience that embraces the privilege of educating all students in the district,” Brooks said in a June interview with ELi that included contributions from six ELPAT contributors. “Essentially, what we’re looking for is a great experience for everyone.”

ELPAT began holding biweekly meetings with school teachers, administrators and ELPS Superintendent Dori Leyko last spring semester and are continuing to meet this fall. The group also holds internal meetings biweekly.

Brooks said ELPAT’s membership is fluid. Some parents attend most meetings and can regularly be seen at Board of Education meetings. Others come to meetings every now and then. Some parents don’t attend meetings at all, but will send ELPAT an email with concerns or challenges they are facing.

The group is made up of parents of children of all ages. Some participants don’t have students in the district anymore but are still vested in the school district’s success. While the group formed due to issues in the high school, it wants to bring issues to the surface in all eight schools.

ELPAT contributors stress they want to hear from everyone. “We only know what we know,” Brooks said, when it comes to issues within the district. Each parent brings a fresh perspective that could uncover another advocacy opportunity.

“This is truly a group for everyone, of all backgrounds, of all experiences,” said Kerry Roberts, mother of a MacDonald Middle School student.

Board meetings opened the community’s eyes to issues within the district.

The series of board meetings following the violent events included hours of public comment. Many in attendance learned that parents had been trying to stop the violence for months.

“I realized that this community was up in arms about this group of boys that had been fighting,” Roberts said. “At the same time, their parents had been begging the school for interaction and support and communication and nothing had happened.”

But it wasn’t just Brooks’ speech that was revealing. Teachers and staff members said school policies weren’t giving them the tools to hold students accountable. Students said they were scared.

To Gary Holbrook, an active parent and former moderator of the “ELPS Parents, Students, and Staff” Facebook page, it became “painfully obvious” there was a feedback gap between the board and those within the schools that policies were not working.

“It’s so critical for them to close that gap,” he said. “That’s a massive feedback gap.”

“A lot of us are professionals that have been in management roles at different points in our lives,” Holbrook continued. “We would never in a million years, supervising an employee, take their word that it’s going well.”

During the Aug. 14 Board of Education meeting, Holbrook was appointed to fill a vacant slot on the school board. Holbrook said in a follow up email with ELi he will need to spend more time on his board duties and less time with ELPAT after his appointment. But he remains committed to the group’s mission.

Brooks stressed the importance of the board and school administration getting feedback so policies that come up short “fail forward.”

“It would just be a real shame for us to find that the issues that came to the surface this year remain unresolved,” Holbrook said.

ELPAT wants to work with, not against the district.

With right-wing parent groups around the country demanding school districts ban books and threatening school employees, ELPAT is clear it is a much different organization. This group wants to take a collaborative approach that helps with student and staff wellness.

“This whole ELPAT, it’s not us against them,” ELPAT contributor Cindy Horgan said. “It’s how do we use our talents as a team.”

In addition to the important perspectives parents bring, ELPAT contributors have professional experiences that can be useful in a school setting. Horgan, for example, is an expert on mental health due to her work as an occupational therapist. She hopes to be able to help the district implement programming that assists with teacher and student wellness.

Specifically, Horgan mentioned the Movemindfully program as a resource that could be helpful to the district. In a Sept. 3 email update to ELi, Horgan said a member of the newly hired ELPS wellness team recently met with the director of Movemindfully.

“My summer interview asked for more emotional wellness support, and I want to highlight that the school is doing this,” Horgan wrote in her email. “Beyond movemindfully, I am confident that many other wellness initiatives will be integrated into our school district.”

ELPAT contributors say the group  isn’t looking to control school curriculum or intervene with the tangible safety changes, like potentially installing metal detectors, which the school is discussing. Rather, it hopes to guide social and interpersonal applications in the district and, in turn, improve relationships that could make the district safer.

The group’s tagline, shared with ELi by Holbrook, lays out their philosophies.

It reads, “East Lansing’s Parent Advocacy Team (ELPAT) is committed to supporting action that strengthens policies, processes, and controls to ensure that matters regarding equity, health and wellness, and successful matriculation or separation are handled appropriately and transparently.”

One goal ELPAT has is making expectations clear for students at all levels. Parents and students don’t know how to work with the district, and inconsistent policy implementation creates confusion.

“Let’s get real clear on what it means to come through the East Lansing district,” Brooks said.

“We’ve really discovered that since our kids returned to school from Covid, they’ve never really received communication on how to be a Trojan,” Roberts added.

ELPAT contributors regularly attend board of education meetings and plan to share the group’s opinion before major decisions are made.

The overarching goal of ELPAT is to meet stakeholders at their humanity and push the school district to be the best it can.

“People want to be proud,” Brooks said. “They want to be proud of the place they call home and where they send their children.”

Stakeholders wishing to contact ELPAT can reach out to elpateam@yahoo.com.