LANSING – Where students at Highland Park schools will end up for the rest of the academic year is still an open question after the Michigan House and Senate pushed through an emergency bill late Thursday afternoon.
Those who show up to their classroom on Monday may not see many teachers, and if there are any teachers there, they will not be paid, because the district has no money.
HB 4445 , which passed largely along party lines in the House with a vote of 63-45 and along similar lines in the Senate by a 23-13 vote, provides $4 million in funding, but none of it will go to the Highland Park school district.
Instead, the students will have the ability to transfer to another school and the districts that take them in will receive about $4,000 per pupil to educate them for the rest of the year. Or the emergency manager running the district, one he is reinstalled, can use the money to pay another district to operate classes out of Highland Park school buildings.
“We have absolutely no interest in sending money to a school district that has so mismanaged itself over the years that they’ve run out of money before the school year (ends), I mean we’re in February,” said Rep. John Walsh (R-Livonia).
Governor Rick Snyder will sign the bill Friday.
Snyder press secretary Sara Wurfel said the goal is to have the least amount of disruptions possible, with as many options possible for parents and students.
“This is uncharted territory,” Wurfel said.
Its finances in shambles, Highland Park is facing a payless payday, or shutting down entirely this week, after Mr. Snyder deactivated the emergency manager for the district because of a pending court case.
The district has been advanced money several times to keep its operations going. The district gets the equivalent of $14,000 per student in revenues (there are now fewer than 1,000 students in the district) but spends $16,000 per student. That’s double the foundation grant of most districts.
During the debate on the floor and afterward, Democrats accused Republicans of having a hand in what was occurring in Highland Park due to cuts made to education in the current year budget and before. Republicans said this was a case of fiscal mismanagement on a grand scale that had been going on for years.
Wurfel said the governor is not one to point fingers or assign blame, but noted, “The numbers are pretty stark.”
In the last five years, the state has advanced state aid payments to school districts 14 times, and five of those were to Highland Park. The state has also made three hardship payments to school districts in the same period and one of those went to Highland Park.
Parents will now have to decide where to send their children in coming days, but more than likely the students will be out of school for the next week while this is sorted out.
Walsh said parents deserve to know what their choices are and make an informed decision, and that can’t be done in a couple days.
Wurfel said the governor is hopeful the school district will find a way to keep teachers in the classroom somehow for the next few days so students could stay in school.
Students could elect to attend a traditional public school or a charter school. Districts willing to accept Highland Park students would have to begin no later than March 5.
The law also allows a district or intermediate school district to enter into an agreement with the emergency manager to run the district for the students who wish to stay, however a charter school would not have that option.
Wurfel said Jack Martin, the district’s emergency manager, by law could not be reinstated until next Thursday, at which time he could work out a deal with a district or ISD so those students could stay where they are. The Highland Park school board decided Thursday night not to appeal the financial emergency.
The Democrats’ plan, in the form of a floor substitute by Rep. John Olumba (D-Detroit), whose district includes Highland Park, was rejected. It would have sent the $4 million to the Wayne County Regional Educational Service Agency, the ISD that covers Highland Park, until the emergency manager was back in place, so the students could have finished out the school year in their school building.
Rep. Kate Segal (D-Battle Creek) said the Republicans’ plan used “political ideology” and will ruin the children’s education. She said the Republicans continue to cut education to let schools go bankrupt to move students out of public schools.
“Our students are going to be traumatized by this,” she said.
In the House, every Republican voted for the bill, despite the reservations of many, said Ari Adler, spokesperson for House Speaker Jase Bolger (R-Marshall).
Mr. Adler said House Republicans had been working for weeks with Democrats on the issue and said to have all but one Democrat, Rep. Richard LeBlanc (D-Westland), vote against it was “shameful politics.”
Bolger was “disgusted” with the Democrats for voting against it, Adler said.
On the floor, Rep. Steven Lindberg (D-Marquette) urged a no vote.
“This was a train wreck we saw coming,” he said.
He said Republicans gave $1.8 billion in tax cuts to businesses and didn’t fully fund K-12 education in the current budget, which was met with boos from the Republicans on the floor.
“We knew this was going to happen,” he said.
Olumba said the Republicans’ plan was “a cover up, of a cover up, of a cover up.”
Rep. Margaret O’Brien (R-Portage) said this was a tough day for Michigan and admitted the plan was not perfect.
“But the perfect plan would have been responsible management all along,” she said.
Approval came much more swiftly in the Senate on a 23-13 vote. Four Republicans – Sen. Jack Brandenburg of Harrison Township, Sen. Tom Casperson of Escanaba, Sen. Dave Robertson of Grand Blanc and Sen. Torry Rocca of Sterling Heights – joined nine Democrats in opposition.
Two Democrats – Sen. Glenn Anderson of Westland and Sen. Steve Bieda of Warren – voted with 21 Republicans in support.
Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing) said the legislation was “wallpapering over the real problem,” the reduction in funding to K-12 schools and a faulty emergency manager law.
“What we are addressing today is a symptom of what ails our education system in Michigan,” she said. “You pass(ed) a budget that stole a billion out of the School Aid Fund, so not one person around here should be surprised that we have a school district in this situation.”
Republicans dismissed that criticism as ridiculous, noting that Highland Park schools was receiving $14,000 per pupil from the state – almost double what most districts receive – and was actually spending the equivalent of $16,000 per pupil.
“This mess doesn’t have anything to do with Public Act 4,” Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville (R-Monroe) said of the emergency manager law. “This mess is there, and we can’t sweep it under the rug, because it’s gross mismanagement and maybe more.”
Sen. Bert Johnson (D-Highland Park) said the situation in the school district is the result of “forty years of systemic disinvestments” by people and business that have left the city, as well as a state government that has failed to invest there.
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