It takes courage to be a school board member these days.
At the moment, it’s the Monroe Public Schools board that is facing tough decisions about how to cut $5 million to balance the budget.
But most area school boards are facing similar financial issues, and others will almost surely be looking at school closures, too.
Last night, Monroe’s board decided to close Cantrick Middle School, moving all the sixth graders back into elementary schools and the 7th and 8th graders to Monroe Middle School, starting next week.
It’s a decision that makes sense. With empty classrooms in most of the elementary buildings and in Monroe Middle School, something needed to be done. Now those classrooms will be filled and the school district will be using tax money more efficiently.
It also kept all of the neighborhood elementary schools open, which is good for the city in general. Monroe is working hard to maintain the viability of its neighborhoods; this will help.
The school board stopped short of adopting all of “Proposal 5,” which also called for using Cantrick to house pre-school programs. They also didn’t address the issue of whether to sell the administration building and move administrators to another building.
That also makes sense. They need more information. They still need to cut another $2.7 million from the budget. As they figure out how to do that, the future of the Cantrick and administration buildings can be considered.
Monroe school district residents, who were relieved by the decision Tuesday night, still have some nervous moments ahead as the school board decides where else to make cuts.
By the way, the story about the school board decision was posted on monroenews.com at about 10:15 p.m. Tuesday night. By early Wednesday morning, more than 800 people had read the story.
Newspaper quote:
BOARD FAILS DUTY ON SCHOOL CLOSINGS
Members duck a tough but needed decision to right-size city school system
The (X) school board is simply abdicating its responsibility by caving into the pressure not to close any schools. Nobody wants their school closed, but board members are elected to make the right decisions for the entire district, not to protect their chances of being re-elected….. To keep schools open and instead lay off up to (X) people defies logic and educational commen sense.
Doesn’t sound familiar? Oh, this was an editorial from the 3-27 Detroit Free Press about the Detroit School Board. To me, this rings true for the MPS board.
The Monroe Public School Board needed to make a hard decision, and they instead made a wimpy one. Perhaps when we have this same deficit problem in a couple years, we will have elected a school board that can make tough decisions, however unpopular. Enrollment is declining and state funding is stagnant at best, yet a logical decision, a decision in the best interest of the district, was not made.
You may very well be right – time will tell.
It’s been my opinion, since I first heard of the school closing proposals, that it’s unrealistic to expect the school board to make school closing decisions before they’ve looked at the other $3 million or so of cuts that need to be made.
When we see what else is cut, school closings may not seem so draconian.
Having said that, I still maintain that keeping neighborhood schools open is important to quality of life in Monroe. If the school board can find fiscally responsible ways to balance the budget while keeping neighborhood schools open, that’s a good thing.
Just my opinion.
If you really care about the future of education in the State of Michigan, go to the website: http://www.miparentsforschools.org. This will give you up to date, critical information in a very handy format. They summarize the latest issues and make it easy for you to voice your opinion just with a few “clicks” of your mouse. If you register your email address with the website, they will send you periodic (i.e., maybe 1-2 per week) updates on the latest developments in Lansing – very easy!!! These are scary times, not just in Monroe, but the entire State…..it is important that we exercise our right to free speech and make our feelings known to our legislators. I urge you – please, speak up!!!