Representatives of the school district currently are preparing emails, reports, meeting minutes and other materials to submit to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights by the extended deadline of Dec. 7 in response to an investigation launched following a complaint, East Lansing School Board President Rima Addiego said.

The complaint alleges the school board’s Sept. 26 decision to close Red Cedar Elementary School, 1110 Narcissus Drive, discriminates against students on the basis of race, color or national origin.

East Lansing resident Margaret Lucas, whose real name is anonymous to protect her identity, filed this complaint against the school district — a move she hopes will uncover the “real factors” behind the decision making process.

The final plan, passed in a split 4-3 vote by the board in September, will put a proposal on the February 2012 ballot to renovate and reconfigure five of the district’s six elementary schools and give the Red Cedar building a new use.

In Lucas’ opinion, choosing Red Cedar in comparison to the other schools could be a result of discrimination against students born in foreign countries, a population who cannot vote.

“To get a bond passed, it has to be voted on, and to get votes, you need U.S. citizens to vote,” Lucas said. “To me, it was strictly — they’re international, they’re not U.S. citizens, they can’t vote — so closing their school won’t impact their ability to pass the bond.”

According to East Lansing school district enrollment numbers from spring 2011, Red Cedar is composed of the highest percentage of minority students, with 59.2 percent. Donley Elementary School comes in next at 48.1 percent, Pinecrest Elementary School at 39.5 percent and Marble Elementary School at 25.2 percent.

Superintendent David Chapin said official numbers of foreign-born students per school are not kept by the district and said if students attending East Lansing Public Schools are from another country, they are dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

Addiego said the board has finalized the ballot language to be placed on the February 2012 ballot and is moving full speed ahead on schedule in regards to the proposal.

She said the decision made by the board was based primarily on enrollment and population spread in the school district from the 2010 U.S. Census data and was made after months of listening to community input.

“We made the decision that we felt represented a compromise,” Addiego said.

Some community members, including Lucas and political science associate professor Mike Colaresi, aren’t convinced the numbers add up to a closure of Red Cedar.

After looking at the data provided the board and the community, Colaresi said he was concerned with the fact the closure of Red Cedar would put all of East Lansing’s elementary schools on the northern end of the city, and said the move likely would disenfranchise about 277 students from having a neighborhood school when taking the district’s walking distance definition of 1.5 miles into account.

Colaresi said he hoped the investigation would be beneficial to coming to a better understanding of what the closure would mean for all of East Lansing students, and both Lucas and Addiego said they are interested in seeing the results of the investigation.