GRAND LEDGE, Mich. (WLNS)– Grand Ledge Public Schools Board had a meeting on Monday that had to be put into recess due to the public disrupting board members, President of the board, Sara Clark Pierson said.
This was the board’s first in-person meeting this year.
During the meeting, the contract for the next superintendent, Marcus Davenport, was also planned to be voted on.
Pierson told 6 News that the board had to go into recess twice during the meeting. Once because someone went over their 3-minute time limit during public comment, and refused to sit down. There was a 5-minute recess.
The second time was after public comment, when two board members were speaking to one another and the audience kept interrupting. Pierson said after multiple warnings to the public, she announced that they would be going into recess and reconvene another day.
Pierson says the public’s comments revolved around three different topics, including wanting to have kids go back to in-person learning five days a week, no mask mandate and avoiding education around critical race theory.
Except Pierson says they recently approved for students to go back in-person in the fall, and critical race theory has never been a topic of conversation and is not in the curriculum. Come June 28 though, an internal committee will make suggestions and present ideas to the board about making the curriculum more “culturally competent.”
The interim superintendent, David Chapin, says they don’t believe everyone at the meeting on Monday was a parent of a student at GLPS or is even affiliated with the Grand Ledge community. Chapin also said that during the meeting on June 21 and the 28, there will be police there just in case things get out of hand.
