Since the school is close to the Spartan Village Apartments — a hub for international and graduate students, faculty and their families — many parents of Red Cedar students chose the school as a way to expose their children to a diverse educational environment, mother of two Red Cedar students and MSU campus minister Robin Langford said.
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Board President Rima Addiego said although the school no longer would be fully operational as an elementary school, it could be used to serve other aspects of East Lansing Public School system.

The board has until the end of July 2013 to move out of its Timberlane Road meeting and office location, and could potentially move into Red Cedar, which would become a combined space for both administration and preschool services, Addiego said.

In March, an East Lansing resident filed an anonymous complaint calling the closure a discriminatory act, since Red Cedar has the highest percentage of minority students in the area.
The international presence in the school, mirrored by the university across the street, is a unique asset to the community, Langford said.

“(Red Cedar Elementary) is not in our neighborhood,” Langford said. “We’ve chosen to put the kids here. People from (outside) the East Lansing School District look at (it) and say it offers things no other school in the district does … There’s something here that truly doesn’t exist in other places I’ve experienced.”

For Red Cedar Elementary PTA President Liesel Carlson, losing the school means losing touch with priorities.

“We have a portable trailer at Donley (Elementary School) as a computer lab,” Carlson said. “We should put the administration in a trailer until they figure something (else) out. It doesn’t make sense to displace (approximately) 300 students for eight or 10 people at the administration building.”