Livonia's plan to handle budget problems divides community
Carolyn Norris-DeyellMichigan’s education funding crisis tore a community apart when the Livonia Board of Education announced a plan to close six elementary schools and one middle school because of budget problems in the 17,000-student district.
“Our school board didn’t make a snap decision on this,” Livonia EA President Carolyn Norris-Deyell said. “A committee consisting of administrators, parents, teachers, community and board members spent a year formulating a pro-active plan to maintain programs and staff.
To maintain staff and programs? Why not a plan that puts our kids education, and the solvency of the district ahead of jobs?
“While critics say over and over that ‘the money isn’t going to the classroom,’ I say that the classroom is the teacher. Our Livonia Legacy Committee recognized that the teacher is the key to helping our students achieve and came up with the best plan to retain as many teachers as possible.”
So all we need to do to raise MEAP scores is give the teachers a raise?
But when the plan was announced in November 2005—to close the six elementary schools and one middle school, and to convert three middle schools into schools for fifth and sixth grade students—the outcry was immediate, Norris-Deyell said.
“Parents didn’t want to lose their neighborhood schools, and they didn’t want to see their kids bused to schools across town,” Norris-Deyell said.
“I can understand the reaction. Parents and children are losing their relationship with teachers at their old school, and students will have to make new friends at a new school. That’s sometimes difficult for young children.”
Angry parents opposing the plan tried to recall five school board members last summer. “Thankfully, the recall failed,” Norris-Deyell said. “We worked hard opposing the recall.”
So much for the Myth that the teachers union was neutral.
While the Livonia plan divided the community, “it was done for the good of the district,” she said. “If we had the funding we need for education, this would not have happened.”
The good of the district, or the good of a bloated administation filled with friends and family?
