The complaint filed said the closing of Red Cedar Elementary would have a “discriminatory, adverse impact on non-white minority students,” Bradshaw said.

School officials have cited census data and declining enrollment trends from the school as the cause of the decision, not racism.

This is the second time the school district has been investigated since the decision was made to close Red Cedar less than two years ago. A similar complaint was filed in 2011 but was dropped last March.

“The questions are fairly consistent with what they were a year ago,” Superintendent David Chapin said.

A complaint filed to the Office of Civil Rights must be within 180 days of the last act the complainant believes was discriminatory, according to Department of Education’s website.

The parties involved in the case were notified of the investigation March 7.

Chapin said the district is fully complying with the Office of Civil Rights’ request for documents.

“Having to pick this up again … is a little discouraging” he said. “We’ll give (the Office of Civil Rights) the information, and I believe it’s in good hands.”

“It’s a matter of filing documents right now,” he said. “That’s all we can do.”

The East Lansing Board of Education voted 5-2 to close Red Cedar Elementary on Nov. 27, 2012, which will be effective in 2014.

Liesel Carlson, co-president of the Red Cedar School Association and a mother of two who attend Red Cedar Elementary, said she hopes the investigation will force the district to examine the consequences of the decision.

“I hope that this complaint will maybe prompt the district (to) look more carefully at the decisions that they’ve made,” she said.

Carlson said the decision to close Red Cedar will affect all students in the district, not just the students in the elementary.

“It will be highly disruptive to many children in East Lansing,” she said.