Local officials’ plan to close a Michigan elementary school and consolidate the students in another school as part of a budgetary measure has resulted in an investigation from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), because a majority of affected students represent a minority population.
OCR has requested documents “regarding the ethnic makeup of its elementary schools, emails, meeting minutes and information used by the school board in approving a recommendation to close” the school, according to the Lansing State Journal.
The investigation was intiated by a complaint reportedly arguing that “closing the school will discriminate against its students based on race color, or national origin.” Fifty-five percent of students at the school, which includes children of international families at nearby Michigan State University, Under local plans, the teachers and students at the closed school would move as a group to another school in the district, which has a 40 percent minority population.
The planned change came as part of a bond measure reportedly asking local taxpayers for $55 million to renovate the remaining five schools in the district.
“I do not feel the school board or superintendent did this with racist intent,” said a local pastor. whose African-born son attends the school, adding nevertheless that “[our church] has voted to work for racial justice in this community by supporting the school.”
