At last night’s Walled Lake Schools Board of Education meeting, the school board voted 4-3 to proceed with the closure of Geisler Middle School and move forward with a new school feeder pattern that left many in the community stunned. Despite several impassioned public comments from parents affected by the new feeder pattern, plus what sounds like dozens of emails from concerned families, the board decided to proceed with a less-than-desirable plan. While the decision to close Geisler seemed inevitable, it is the vote on the feeder pattern that will leave a black mark on the last night’s meeting.
Community Concerns
The community's concerns surrounded the high school feeder patterns of two of the district's elementary schools, Loon Lake Elementary and Meadowbrook Elementary. Parents at these schools wanted to attend Walled Lake Western and Walled Lake Central, respectively. But the board instead voted to send Loon Lake to Walled Lake Central and Meadowbrook to Walled Lake Western. The problem isn't in the schools themselves, and the Superintendent clarified that both high schools will be able to accommodate any in-district transfer requests from parents who want to pick another high school path. The problem is with the process that got the board to this vote.
Lack of Transparency
The facilities utilization process began in 2023 with a great deal of community feedback. A facilities committee was formed, and a recommendation was presented to the board on September 26, 2024, with a specific feeder pattern map that sent Loon Lake students to Walled Lake Western and Meadowbrook students to Walled Lake Central. Accordingi to board member comments at last night's meeting, the board received no feedback regarding the map shared on September 26th, which, the board member believed, meant everyone was ok with it. Which is why it came as quite a shock, both to the board and the community, when an entirely new map was presented to the board on November 7, 2024. That is when the community took notice and when the emails and comments started. Although the administration did take some feedback to heart and changed the map again, the final map presented a couple weeks later still fell short. By this time, the facilities committee started to realize their work did not matter, and the community felt their comments didn't matter either.
Walled Lake Schools have consistently had a problem with transparency and accountability, and this situation highlights these continued issues.
Violation of Policy and Potential Legal Risk
During the vote, board member Shayna Levin attempted to amend the motion to adopt the 9/26 map instead of the final map. Outgoing board member, Peggy Casagrande, incorrectly stopped the amended motion from being considered. Although the Superintendent spoke with an attorney about the process during a brief recess, the attorney's advice to allow Casagrande to decide whether or not to accept the amendment was also incorrect. Robert's Rules of Order has a specific process for amending motions, which Levin tried to follow, but the meeting continued without the amended motion - and thus the map that the community preferred - even being considered. For all of the praise Casagrande seemed to receive from some supporters during public comment, one can’t help but wonder if Casagrande's legacy was one borne from simply being loud and speaking confidently, rather than being correct.
Leadership Matters
Last night’s meeting was another unfortunate reminder that elections have consequences. Although there was a great deal of support for the community to elect new, common sense board members, the community instead continues to elect the same old board members, or new board members who act exactly the same as the old ones, and somehow expects different results.
We applaud board members Julie Fernandez, Shayna Levin, and Lisa West for trying to do the right thing for students, staff, and the community, and we can only hope that their sound logic and reasoning starts to permeate the minds of their fellow board members. WLCPR will continue to advocate for our families and support those board members who truly understand what it means to serve.
Know someone who might want to read this email? Forward it to them. Want to be part of the fight? Join WLCPR today!
Comments