Ovid-Elsie board's only action Monday: closed session on legal opinion

The Ovid-Elsie Area Schools board has one piece of new business when it meets at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 21, and it is a vote to leave the room. The agenda lists an "Attorney Opinion Letter" and a recommended motion to enter closed session under section 8(1)(h) of Michigan's Open Meetings Act "to consider information exempt from disclosure under FOIA."

The agenda does not say what the opinion is about, who requested it, or whether the board will take any action in public afterward. Under the Open Meetings Act, that provision lets a public body go behind closed doors to consider material — including a written legal opinion — that is exempt from public disclosure.

The meeting is in the student lounge at Ovid-Elsie High School, 8989 E. Colony Road in Elsie, the same room the board and its committees have used through a busy year of building decisions.

Everything else on the agenda is routine or informational. A single roll-call vote on the consent agenda covers minutes from the Aug. 19 regular meeting and the Sept. 9 work session, payment of July bills, the July monthly financial report, the July cash and investment summary, and a personnel action report. No dollar figures and no names are printed on the agenda itself.

The superintendent's report lists five subjects: current enrollment numbers, homecoming festivities, the MASA fall conference, "3 board candidates" and NEOLA fall updates. The agenda gives no names for the three candidates and does not say whether the reference is to people who filed for the Nov. 3 ballot. Enrollment has been a live question at this district — The Current reported that the board's Aug. 5 work session agenda paired enrollment projections with a possible restructuring concept, with no action taken.

Notably absent from Monday's agenda is any facilities or bond item. The Current reported that the board's facilities committee interviewed architects GMB and Kingscott on Aug. 11 and construction managers Clark and Christman on Aug. 10, and that the board split 4-3 on July 20 in approving an application to the state's School Bond Qualification and Loan Program. The same July meeting renamed the high school track the Doug Long Track Complex for a longtime coach, with signage paid by private donations.

Public comment comes twice: at the start, limited to items on the agenda, and again after new business. Each speaker gets three minutes and is directed to address the board chair, not staff or other members of the audience, under policy 0167.3.

What happens next: the board meets Monday at 6:30 p.m. in the high school student lounge in Elsie. The Current has asked what the attorney opinion letter concerns and will report the enrollment figures, the July bills total and any action the board takes after the closed session.