Community forum in lieu of Averill Woods Neighborhood Association Monthly Meeting *NOTE TIME AND LOCATION CHANGE*

When: Thu, February 23, 6pm – 9pm
Where: Reo Elementary School,  1221 Reo Ct, Lansing, MI 48911 (map)

Our neighborhood association is focusing on issues related to the Lansing School District restructuring, it's impact on our neighborhood, and how we can participate in the forward direction of the Lansing School District. 

 The Lansing School District will be having one meeting on the Southside to discuss restructuring of schools.  The current restructuring plan affects nearly all Southside schools, including Averill and Lewton elementary schools which are in or near our  neighorhood. 

This meeting happens to fall on our regular meeting night and our meeting was to be focused on the school restructuring plan anyway! 

 So we are encouraging residents to attend this informational meeting in lieu of our regular monthly meeting. We'll have an opportunity to have Q&A with the board members. It will also be great to have a visible presence of our neighborhood at this meeting. If you have any pressing issues or concerns please feel free to contact one of our leadership team members.


Feel free to print and wear this badge to the meeting :-)

I'm not guaranteeing this exactly what the administration has proposed, but it is what I could ascertain from the documents and presentations at the special meeting.  I present it here so that residents can examine it and identify any information gaps or considerations that might not have been addressed.  I've passed it along to the board members so they can advise me on any edits to this document.  I'll post any changes here. -- Melissa

http://midmeac.org/events/tabid/1384/vw/3/itemid/460/d/20120203/february-land-use-lunch-school-structure--land-use-planning.aspx 

2/3/2012 12:00 PM - 1:00 PMThe Christman Building, 208 North Capitol Avenue,

Here are my notes from the restructuring meeting.  The document marked "confidential" was likely only confidential until the meeting. It was passed out to everyone.

My observation was that it was a well-run meeting with a positive tenor.  There were pleasant, humorous exchanges between board and cabinet members.  Much appreciation was expressed for the work of Bryan Ralph, COO, and other members of the administrative cabinet.  He was able to describe details of the scenarios he analyzed in trying to come up with the best possible configurations. While no detailed fiscal analysis was provided, other than the yearly summaries, the examples he cited gave credibility, in my mind, that the fiscal analyses appear to have been based on a thorough assessment of options.

I had some positive interactions after the meeting with board members and expressed our interest in working with them.  There was an acknowledgement that now is the time to build on the momentum of community interest and working with neighborhood groups to facilitate a meaningful dialogue.

This is the document shared with the public in attendance at the special meeting on January 31, 2011. Thank you to Carol Wood for providing the scanned version.

Vic Celentino, Ingham County Commissioner, forwarded this press release to neighborhood leaders:

Several proposals will appear on the November 2, 2010 ballot in Lansing and around the state.  One of the proposals is for an increased millage to create a Building Site Sinking Fund for Lansing School District.

Reporter Rebecca Kruth produced this WKAR report outlining the proposal.  Assistant Deputy Superintendent, Jim Davis, shares his perspective on why the millage is needed in this Lansing State Journal article.

The Lansing School District had sent informational packets and invited neighborhood association leaders to attend an informational meeting on October 23rd. Unfortunately many of us could not attend because it was scheduled for the same evening as our Candidates Forum sponsored by our Southside neighborhood associations.  

School board member Myra Ford came to the Candidates Forum to pass out informational brochures before the event.  She received several questions from residents and did her very best to answer them.  However, the school district had not provided her with the answers to the questions residents had about the specific expenditures and how the money and repairs would be distributed across the buildings. She and I agreed to work together to continue seeking more of this information that residents of our southside neighborhoods were seeking.

I submitted these questions to Steve Serkaian, marketing and communications consultant for lansing School District. He arranged for Ken Jones to attend our monthly meeting to answer our questions.

Ken Jones, Lansing School Board member and Averill Woods neighborhood association member, presented the following information in response to our questions about the millage proposal. 

I've also added my notes to include additional information he presented. I also included some of our responses to his answers. 

In general, my editorial review is that (a) folks understood the serious need for repairs in many of the buildings and greater community support for the public schools. Yet there was a (b) desire for greater communication from the school district and engagement of the community in discussions about financial decision-making.  But there is also the (c) recognition that lay persons might not recognize the critical needs to be addressed and prioritized compared to a maintenance engineer. Ken affirmed comment by Bill Fude that that many of the necessary repairs would be invisible deepin the infrastructure of the school buildings.  Ken noted that there can be a big difference between what stakeholders might want for their school improvements and what a maintenance engineer would say is critical.