CALUMET TOWNSHIP — In a special meeting conducted last Thursday, the Calumet-Laurium-Keweenaw (CLK) Board of Education unanimously approved a resolution supporting local district control in determining learning, instruction and extracurricular modes, as defined by Public Act 148, along with an action item acknowledging and supporting the efforts throughout the state of Michigan to reinstate winter athletics before Feb. 21.

CLK’s actions came on the heels, of previous action taken at the School Board’s regular meeting on Jan. 12, when a letter of support was approved for the Houghton County Board of Commissioners’ resolution calling for the reopening of small businesses and contact sports, along with local authority to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. The actions also came at the same time that the Hancock Board of Education published an open letter to state officials from in which that school district objected to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHA) Jan. 22 epidemic order prohibiting contact sports from Feb. 1 to 21.

The CLK resolution states, in part:

“Superintendents (the district administration) are hired by locally elected school boards (the board) that are empowered to conduct the business of local school school districts (the District) pursuant to the various provisions of the Michigan Revised School Code.”

The resolution also states that the district has, and continues to, navigate how best to meet the educational needs of its students in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and has embraced Public Act 148 and the requirements of the Extended COVID-19 Learning Plan, which authorizes locally elected school board to determine the learning mode best (suited) to meet the educational needs of its students in the midst of the ongoing pandemic.

The resolution, in stating its purpose, goes on:

“The district seeks to have the director of the MDHHS lift any and all restrictions on K-12 education and extra-curricular activities, and to allow the district administration to work with the locally elected board members to execute the plays they were required to created in accordance with P.A. 148, to provide in-person instruction and programs that are approved by the locally elected board.”

The Action Item contained in the resolution states that the CLK Board recognizes that student participation in organized athletics and other extracurricular activities have many physical and mental health benefits that the students need.

“The fall Michigan Athletic Association pilot testing program of student athletes in some of the best available date we have on COVID-19 and student athletes 18 years and younger,” the resolution concludes. “The result was a negativity rate of 99.8 percent out more than 30,000 tests.”

CLK and Hancock schools are not alone in pushing back against the Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s extending of the ban on high school athletics. On Jan. 28, the Senate Education Committee passed unanimously a resolution urging her to allow winter high school contact sports to be played.

WLNS News, Lansing, reported on Thursday, the same day CLK approved its resolution, that the Senate Education Committee passed a resolution, urging Gov. Whitmer to allow winter high school contact sports to be played. That resolution was written by Senator Dale Zorn. It passed 6 to 0.

The Lansing news agency reported that according to a press release, lawmakers scheduled the hearings, because Families throughout the state have reached out to their elected legislators about the governor’s abrupt decision to extend the ban on certain high school winter sports.

The Michigan Senate Education and Career Readiness Committee has a hearing scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday on a resolution urging Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to allow for all winter sports to resume.

The Michigan House Oversight Committee is planning a hearing at 10:30 a.m. Thursday with the Michigan High School Athletic Association executive director, a group lobbying for the return of winter sports, a high school athletic director, student-athletes and parents.