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Brighton school board meeting becomes tense over quarantine policies

Meeting recessed after exchange between parent, board member

Brighton, Mich. – Monday’s Brighton Area Schools board meeting brought out several parents upset with what they view as the district’s too stringent quarantine policy.

The tenor of the meeting abruptly changed when a parent, whose child had just been exposed to COVID at school, came to the podium.

Read: Clintondale Community Schools sends all 8th grade students home after teacher tests positive for COVID

“I’m upset,” Sue Ellen Ikens told the board. “These folks are loud and they’re driven and some of them are really into it but some of them are really cynical. I’m seeing the same names and the same faces that I’ve seen from Fenton and Hartland and Howell every time one of these left-right issues comes to the board. That we have taken the health of my family and the health of children and just let cynical people politicize it.”

Ikens then accused them of bullying and specifically pointed out Trustee William Trombley. That’s when board President Roger Myers slammed the gavel, telling Ikens she could not criticize individual board members.

“You have no right to address any specific board member,” Myers said.

Trombley then began a coughing fit, in which he tried to drown out Ikens. Myers recessed the meeting and told WHMI-FM it was an attempt to try to diffuse the situation.

The meeting resumed and Ikens was allowed to finish her comments.

Read: Michigan adopts new definition of school COVID outbreak, raising threshold


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