Three parents told the Lansing Unified School District board during public comment that school leadership has failed to respond adequately to safety incidents at Lansing Elementary School and asked the board to hold administrators accountable.

Stacy Kent, a parent of a third grader, said she emailed the superintendent and principal repeatedly about ongoing classroom disruptions and safety concerns and received only generic replies. Kent said that on Oct. 20 her child “came home after being assaulted at school,” and that the principal had provided “no visible plan, no consistent communication, and no reassurance”. Kent asked the board to provide a plan of action by the December meeting.

Brandy Parks said her daughter’s health has deteriorated amid classroom chaos. Parks described repeated episodes of headaches, dizziness and chest pain that led to emergency-room visits and cardiac testing. “No child should end up in the ER because of what they witnessed at school,” Parks told the board and asked members to remove or hold leadership accountable and provide supports for teachers.

Kristen D’Souza described an incident she says occurred Sept. 25 in a hallway in which a student was slapped and left with a bruise. D’Souza said the principal had been slow to respond, had removed the superintendent from e-mail correspondence, and that she was told there is no district policy requiring that such assaults be reported to district leadership — leaving response to principal discretion. She asked the board to adopt a districtwide reporting and response policy by the Dec. 8 board meeting, require increased weekly building visibility by the superintendent and board members, and create disciplinary steps for administrators who fail to follow procedures.

Board members responded by agreeing to invite the parents into a personnel executive session (one at a time) if the matter fell under the personnel exemption; they also discussed scheduling a special meeting or executive session to hear parents’ concerns more privately. The board president moved that invited parents be brought into executive session and set the closed session to resume publicly at 9:30 p.m.; the motion passed and several parents were named for invitation.

What the parents asked for: a district action plan to be made public by the December board meeting, a clear districtwide reporting and response policy for assaults and other safety incidents, visible weekly leadership presence in buildings, and disciplinary measures when administrators do not follow procedures.

District response in the meeting: administrators said the superintendent had previously agreed to meet with building administrators to create a reporting policy, but parents said they had seen no concrete change since that promise. The superintendent and other administrators suggested that student matters would need to be addressed under personnel or student exemptions when handled in executive session.

Next steps: the board agreed to a special meeting/workshop to discuss safety and related matters and moved to invite parents into executive session individually; the board also directed staff to consider what updates to district reporting policy are necessary and to prepare an action plan for the Dec. board meeting as requested by parents. The executive session and personnel process — including whether actions were disciplinary or investigatory — were handled in closed session.