Superintendent Details ELPS Plans for Covid-19 Mitigation and Online Learning Options
Amid rising Covid-19 case numbers nationally and locally, parents from two different families came before the East Lansing School Board on Monday, Aug. 9, to share that they were upset with the district’s decision not to offer online instruction this fall and with what they have seen as the general lack of information about what a return to in-person learning will look like.
In response, Superintendent Dori Leyko detailed how the district is trying to help children whose parents feel their families need online learning and what the district is doing about minimizing the impact of Covid-19 as school restarts.
The decision not to offer online instruction via ELPS was apparently conveyed via email earlier on Monday, and one of the parents speaking to the board said this had them exploring online options for their children in other districts before the first day of school, on Aug. 24. In the cases of both parents who spoke to the board, the families face the challenge of trying to maintain the well-being of all members of their households in the face of a highly contagious disease.
After comments from these parents, Superintendent Leyko offered some clarity, saying that while ELPS isn’t offering online instruction, the district is trying to partner with the Lansing Public School District for an online learning program being run through the Lansing schools. On Monday, Leyko said they hadn’t formally agreed with Lansing to partner, but that is expected to happen soon.
And, as Leyko explained it, ELPS is trying to take measures to ensure that any students who do utilize this online instruction in the neighboring district will be able to smoothly re-enroll in ELPS when ready. For resident students, this should not be a problem, Leyko explained, but for school-of-choice (non-East Lansing resident) students, the district is working on a mechanism so the students will technically remain ELPS students and will not lose their places in the district.
The reason ELPS isn’t offering its own online instruction, Leyko said, was the small number of ELPS students whose parents are looking to have them signed up for virtual school. For grades K-6, Leyko said, only around 40 children’s parents had expressed interest in virtual instruction. This would’ve resulted in at most eight kids in a given grade level online, Leyko said, and as few as three. The district doesn’t have the resources — namely teachers — to dedicate to such small classes.
In addition to trying to partner with Lansing to offer online classes, the board also briefly got into a discussion about what Covid-19 mitigation protocols will remain, and which won’t, as students return to school in-person.
Leyko said the district is giving up on temperature checks for people entering the building and that they will not be using dividers at tables and desks within classrooms.
On Monday, Leyko said that she’s glad they did the temperature checks a year ago, but that not enough useful information was garnered from that program in terms of identifying outbreaks to warrant expending the resources again.
The barriers at tables in classrooms need to go because, Leyko said, with nearly the entire student body returning, barriers would take up desk space needed by students.

Dylan Lees for ELi
Some measures are persisting, though. There will be universal masking indoors — except in the cafeteria when eating (and where the table barriers will remain). Windows will be open when possible, and students will be outside for eating and classes when feasible.
Additionally, everyone will be expected to maintain at least three feet of distance whenever possible. Movements around the classroom and around the building will be altered like last year, and the one-way system of hallway traffic will remain.
Leyko also said the district was looking into new testing programs, as the Sunday and Thursday mode of testing last year put excess strain on staff.
The last point Leyko was asked to address was a contingency plan for moving the district back online, should the Covid-19 situation take another major negative turn.
She said there will be a plan, and it is in the works, but it hasn’t been completed as administrators and staff handle the regular business of getting the school year started in-person.
The two parents who spoke on Monday expressed the desire for more information and to provide online learning for children who aren’t vaccinated.
The first parent to raise concerns about this during public comment was Erin Sarzyinski, a practicing hospice and palliative care physician who works for Sparrow Hospital. She said that as the pandemic has worsened in recent weeks amid growing spread of the Delta variant, the patients she is seeing are “younger and sicker.” She also said some patients are going downhill faster.
Sarzynski’s concerns centered around the fact that while one of her children, a 7th grader, is vaccinated, the other, a 5th grader, is not eligible for the shots yet. She also added that her husband is disabled due to a bout with Influenza-A — she termed it “long influenza,” similar to “long Covid” — which Sarzynski said was contracted from an outbreak at Pinecrest Elementary School.
The idea of her children getting similarly sick due to Covid-19 is “terrifying to me as a parent and physician,” Sarzynski said.
Sarzynski said that she “cannot fathom” sending her children to school in person until everyone in her household is vaccinated. She urged the district to keep up mitigation protocols in the buildings and layer them, and encouraged anyone who could to get vaccinated.
She also encouraged the district to facilitate online learning, particularly for the K-6 range where most students are not old enough to be eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine.
Following Sarzynski, another parent — Jason Noffsinger — spoke, saying he was similarly concerned about the lack of an online option from the district, along with the lack of information, generally. He explained that he has a medically-fragile toddler at home and so he has to worry about his older children bringing Covid-19 into the house.
Noffsinger noted that for the past school year, there were communicated benchmarks for various Covid-19 data that determined whether in-person instruction could occur, whether sports could go on, and the like. He said he wanted something like that this year, and asked if there were such benchmarks. He also asked if there was a contingency for the district to move online.
Noffsinger also said that he hoped for more information about what protocols would be in place in the buildings, adding that he agreed with Sarzynski about layering them. He also asked specifically about masks and if there will be some quality standard as some masks are better than others. That issue was not addressed at the meeting. Also at Monday’s meeting, the School Board voted to rename Pinecrest Elementary as Dr. Robert L. Green Elementary in honor of the national civil rights leader and the man believed to be the first Black man to purchase a house in East Lansing. Read ELi’s special report on that.