East Lansing Board of Education President Chris Martin and Superintendent Dori Leyko at the March 11, 2024 East Lansing Board of Education meeting. (Dylan Lees for ELi)

ELPS Selected to Host Multicultural Student Achievement Network Annual Conference

East Lansing Public Schools (ELPS) will host the annual national Multicultural Student Achievement Network (MSAN) conference Nov. 13-16 at the Kellogg Center, the district announced at the July 22 ELPS Board of Education meeting.

According to the MSAN’s about page, “MSAN is a national coalition of multiracial school districts learning, growing, and working together toward the goal of improving access, opportunity, and achievement for students of color.”

In her report, ELPS Superintendent Dori Leyko said that over 250 high school students and chaperones from across the country will attend the conference. There, they will hear from guest speakers, network, tour the Michigan State University campus and begin action planning for the 2024 school year.

ELPS volunteered to host this year’s conference.

ELPS Board Trustee Terah Chambers shown at the Jan. 27, 2020 board meeting. (ELi file photo)

MSAN’s Executive Director Latoya M. Holiday said as the host district ELPS will create a planning team of staff and students who will work with MSAN staff to organize the conference.

“As with all student conferences to date, we hope students leave with new knowledge, ideas, and strategies about how they can grow as student leaders and a deeper understanding of their individual role and responsibility in helping to improve school for themselves and their classmates,” Holiday said.

School board members said they look forward to the conference.

“I’m so excited for this MSAN conference to be hosted here,” Trustee Terah Chambers said. “That’s going to be so cool.”

Leyko said this year’s theme will be about “leaving your legacy,” and the district will be tapping into some of ELPS’s very own legacies.

Leyko added that Robert Green, a civil rights hero and the first Black homeowner in East Lansing, is unable to travel but the district is looking to engage him remotely or have him pre-record material for the conference. One of the district’s elementary schools is named after Green. 

At the brief July 22 meeting, the board also welcomed three newly hired teachers. Darah (Kathleen) Fehrenbach as a kindergarten teacher at Marble Elementary School, Allison Lubbers as a fourth grade teacher also at Marble, and Taryn Tucker as a second-grade teacher at Donley Elementary School. All three will start with the upcoming school year.