×

Parents plan ‘takeover’ of RC school meeting

ROGERS CITY — There will be more people in attendance at Monday’s Rogers City Area Schools Board of Education meeting because of alleged issues involving bullying in the district.

Rogers City residents are planning a “Board of Education meeting takeover” at Monday’s meeting, according to a Facebook event.

Jennifer and Michael Porter, Rogers City residents and parents, organized the Facebook event after Rogers City High School sophomore Natalie Grulke, 16, died on May 2. Jennifer Porter said Grulke shot herself as a result of bullying.

Jenny Grulke, Natalie Grulke’s mother, did not respond to Facebook messages seeking comment. She is listed as an attendee of the board meeting takeover and has in recent days posted several memes to Facebook addressing suicide and depression.

Superintendent Nick Hein said that, legally, he cannot speak about the event. He said there are untrue things that are being spoken by people right now.

“For any public meeting, when we have a board meeting, the school will obviously make arrangements to accommodate the size of our attendance for any of our meetings,” Hein said. “That’s all I can say. We’ll see what happens.”

Porter said people have been “screaming from the rooftops” about the bullying that takes place at school. She said the community is upset about what takes place at school and people don’t know what to do, anymore.

“The amount of bullying that takes place is unbelievable,” Porter said. “It’s causing huge problems for this community.”

Porter said she isn’t sure how many people will be in attendance at the meeting, but said there should be more people than usual. The Facebook event created says 20 people are going to the meeting, with 58 interested in going as of Friday evening.

“There are a lot of people that could end up showing up, and as far as children that don’t have Facebooks, grandparents that don’t have Facebook accounts to respond, or the ones that don’t want to face scrutiny by responding to it but will show up, anyway,” Porter said. “I would say anywhere from 50 on up, and in this small, little town, that’s a big turnout.”

With so many people anticipated, the meeting has been moved from the Rogers City High School meeting room to the high school’s library. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m.

“It’s a very sad situation for everybody,” Porter said. “We hope they take responsibility. We want anything at this point to try to put a stop to it.”

The school board has scheduled a special meeting for 6 p.m. Monday. That meeting will also offer time for public comment, but organizers of the event are planning to “take over” the 6:30 p.m. meeting.

Julie Goldberg can be reached at 989-358-5688 or jgoldberg@thealpenanews.com. Follow her on Twitter @jkgoldberg12.

If you go

∫ WHAT: Rogers City Area Schools Board of Education meeting

∫ WHEN: Monday at 6:30 p.m.

∫ WHERE: Rogers City High School library

∫ INFO: Rogers City residents are planning to use public comment during the meeting to talk about bullying issues in the district.

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.62/week.

Subscribe Today