Education

Thousands of Michigan schools are starting a new year under a cloud of uncertainty as they wait for state lawmakers to hammer out the final K-12 education budget. 

School districts have been waiting since the end of June to learn how much state funding they’ll get this year.

Flint Junior High was closed Wednesday because of high temperatures inside the school.

Other Flint public school students are getting some relief from the heat.

Less than three months ago, Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s administration made an announcement that stunned the community in Benton Harbor.

The city’s school district was in a financial and academic crisis, the state Department of Treasury said. The district was $18.4 million in debt. Governor Whitmer said the district would have to close Benton Harbor High School for the 2020-21 school year.

The Michigan Department of Education is getting an “incomplete” on its assignment to assign a letter grade to every Michigan school.

The state Department of Education will miss a September first deadline to provide "A to F" grades on Michigan schools.

The law requiring the new accountability system was passed during last year’s lame duck legislative session. But education department officials have struggled to compile all of the necessary data to meet the legislative timetable.

On Tuesday, voters in Washtenaw County approved a $53 million bond proposal to renovate a school for students with special needs.

The High Point School serves students with medical needs and challenges. That includes many students in wheelchairs.

The ACLU of Michigan is asking Governor Gretchen Whitmer to let local leaders in Benton Harbor decide what happens in their schools.

The ACLU delivered that message in the form of a letter to the governor’s office on Friday.

Michigan will have two accountability systems in place for K-12 schools this fall. The state system, passed during a lame duck session, puts in place a different system of accountability for schools than the one mandated by the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. 

Here’s the rundown on the two systems: 

A new chapter in Michigan State University history begins Thursday with the arrival of President Dr. Samuel Stanley Jr.

Stanley was unanimously chosen to be MSU’s next president by the Board of Trustees on May 28th. He’s been president at Stony Brook University in New York since 2009.

The school year is quickly approaching. But just one more month of summer may not be enough time for Sunset Lake Elementary School in Vicksburg. Thirty teachers at the school released a statement this week in which they said they cannot “in good conscience” return to school this September without making parents and the public aware of the various health issues the staff has suffered over the past year. They believe these health issues are the result of what they describe as poor air quality in the school building. 

A new report maps out which neighboring Michigan school districts are the most segregated by race, poverty, and revenue. It comes 45 years after the U.S. Supreme Court told white families in Michigan (and by extension, the nation) if they wanted to avoid mandatory school integration, all they had to do was move to a whiter district.

“As if quarantining students of color, we have forced them into racially dense and underfunded systems, and then built walls around them,” reads the report from EdBuild, an activist group aimed at disrupting “the status quo of illogical and inequitable school funding.”

If Michigan’s Read by Grade 3 retention law went into effect for this fall, nearly 5,000 third graders would repeat the third grade, according to Michigan State University researchers.

School board members in Benton Harbor say they’ll try again to reach an agreement with the governor’s office to turn the district around.

The administration of Governor Whitmer announced a tentative agreement with the school board earlier this month, but board members said there was no agreement.

At a meeting Saturday, board members said they’re working on a new proposal

Meanwhile, interim superintendent Patricia Robinson says some teachers and parents have already decided to leave the district because of the uncertainty.

Benton Harbor High School could stay open for the next year, if the school board votes on Tuesday night to approve an agreement with the state.

State officials had proposed closing the high school because the district is more than $18 million in debt and students are struggling academically. That created a community outcry to keep the school open.

Teachers from a closing Detroit charter school are relieved to find out they will be paid, after being told there wasn’t enough money for their final paychecks.  

Hamilton Academy is run by Education Partnerships Incorporated, a charter school company that took it over from Detroit Public Schools because of the school’s low performance.

Grand Valley State University is one of nine universities and colleges across the country that are receiving recognition for serving Latino students' needs.

Excelencia in Education is a non-profit organization dedicated to Latino students' success. GVSU is part of the organization's first-year recipients of the Seal of Excelencia.

To earn the seal, universities and colleges must show evidence of success in practices pertaining to Excelencia in Education’s standards.

Ann Arbor Public Schools has released more information about lead found in the drinking water at local public schools. The district tested 1,426 drinking water sources at 32 different schools, and found that 91.6% met or exceeded AAPS standards.

The district standard for lead in drinking water is 5 parts per billion, and the federal standard is 15 parts per billion. The district standard was raised in October 2018 after parents expressed concerns.

The fight for Benton Harbor High School is still alive.

The Benton Harbor school board rejected the state’s plan to close the high school.

The Michigan Board of Education approved controversial new social studies curriculum standards Tuesday.

Chanting “Save our school,” Benton Harbor parents, students and elected leaders brought their campaign to keep the city’s high school open to the governor’s office Tuesday.

The state is proposing shutting down Benton Harbor’s high school as part of plan to eliminate the district’s multi-million dollar debt.