At the school board’s special meeting Oct. 17 when the financial audit was presented, about a dozen parents spoke out against the recently announced plan to move some Kindergarten students from Savage to Haggerty elementary school to even out class size.
This decision was made in the wake of the official school count which found the school district had fewer students than expected in the elementary schools and some classes were very small and others very large.
Students also will be moving from Elwell to Rawsonville school, with some fifth graders being relocated, too. Two Kindergarten teachers will be laid off. The process will also save about $100,000.
At Monday’s meeting, many of the unhappy parents were back. At the previous meeting they had asked the board to come up with some other plan than the announced relocations, which are due to take effect Nov. 7.
But, the board stood firm and after more than one hour and 40 minutes of heated comments on the agenda item (Update on Move of Kindergarten Classes), Board President Martha Toth said the board should move on with the evening’s business.
When parents resisted, accusing Toth of cutting them off, Toth replied, “We did not attempt to limit you. Three minutes is our policy, but we did not limit you to that.”
In presenting the update, Human Resources Director Shonta Langford-Green, said in working with proposed alternate ways to even out class sizes, she found while only four official Attendance Deviations were on file at Elwell, actually there were 12 in the Kindergarten. At Edgemont there are 25 Kindergarteners with Attendance Deviations.
An Attendance Deviation is when a student has permission to attend another school in the district, other than the one the child is assigned.
When everything was sorted out, Green said she recommends going with the previously announced plan of moving Kindergarteners from Elwell to Rawsonville and others from Savage to Haggerty.
She determined that school building staffs have been approving Attendance Deviations without notifying central office, which complicated the situation. Green said they are looking into who is responsible.
The board agreed that has been the rule and the building administrators knew it, but it hasn’t been followed.
During the discussion, Trustee Sherry Frazier brought up the $40,000 secretary for the newly opened Community Resource Center and criticized the addition of non-instructional help, while laying off teachers.
School Supt. Riutta explained that when the business office was privatized recently, two people were displaced.
One individual, Business Office Supervisor Pam Smart, will leave Oct. 28 for other employment, and the secretary, who has seniority, has chosen to go to an elementary school. The secretary displaced by that move is going to the Community Resource Center and, hopefully, will be paid with federal Title 1 funds, Riutta said. He said this eliminated unemployment costs.
The parents were not pacified by the explanations, still insisting the move wasn’t fair to their young children who were being uprooted after two months in school.
When a parent asked if one of the secretaries involved was related to a board member, Vice President Bob Binert said his wife is one of the secretaries involved and Binert warned parents of libel laws if they said anything else.
At the end of the meeting, parents called out that when they go to the polls, they will remember Toth, who they said cut them off from their remarks, and Binert, whose wife got the newly created job. Both Toth and Binert are up for reelection on Nov. 8.
“I don’t think the $100,000 [saved] was worth the bad will we got tonight,” Frazier said.
Earlier in the meeting, Toth complained that charter schools keep students long enough in the fall to get them officially counted on Student Count Day, so they get the state aid, but then they come to the VB schools. “They get the money; we get the students,” she said, adding legislation should be written to fix that.
Frazier said, “We have to know why parents are sending their kids down the street to Keystone instead of to Van Buren Public Schools… We have to get some information on why.”
In other business at Monday’s meeting, the board:
• Approved three field trips for middle school students, including one SMS eighth grade trip by bus to Washington, D.C. in March, and SMS and NMS sixth-grade trips to Camp Storer Nov. 28-Dec. 2;
• Approved the requested termination of two-year food service worker Leann Houck for other employment; and recalled from layoff two special services paraprofessionals Martha Hudelston, SMS, and Tracey Mercer, Tyler. Also, hired was Renee Baker, food services worker at BHS;
• Approved transportation for Boys and Girls Club on Oct. 25 to Apple Charlie’s Cider Mill at the usual transportation costs (estimated $125);
• Accepted the financial audit of the district for fiscal year ending June 30, as presented in full by Tom Taylor of Taylor & Morgan at the Oct. 17 special meeting;
• Learned that Riutta has put James Williams of the maintenance staff in charge of the Building and Grounds Department on an interim basis since director Brian Brice is hospitalized. A temporary position for Williams’ job has been posted. Brice was preparing for hip surgery when it was found he needed a triple heart bypass first. After recovering from the heart surgery, he will be having his hip surgery;
• Agreed to have Binert proceed with steps to organize a community committee to plan use of the new BHS facility, including the stadium and artificial turf field, pool and gymnasiums, media center, auditorium, etc. The call for volunteers is expected to go out at the public forum planned for Nov. 12;
• Approved a Superintendent Search Profile, as recommended by Michigan Leadership Institute, with some slight changes. The district is not requiring a doctor’s degree, but is requiring a master’s degree plus 30 hours in education or a related field. Salary will be negotiated. The internal superintendent candidates will be sifted through by the board at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 28, at Rawsonville Elementary School. Outside candidates have a deadline of Nov. 25;
• Approved having Riutta get more information, including costs, for Plante Moran CRESA to do a Pupil Enrollment Study and Facility Utilization Study, to help with decisions on closing schools due to declining enrollment, reconfiguring the middle schools, and other items. Riutta said the committees that gave reports on those subjects will be called back to help;
• Heard an update on new state education laws from board attorney Jack Gerling of Collins and Blaha;
• Approved the minutes of six student disciplinary hearings that resulted in one permanent expulsion; one expulsion for 180 days; suspensions of eight days, nine days, and one month; and one discipline tabled pending special services review; and
• Was reminded the next board meeting is Oct. 28 at 7 p.m. at Rawsonville school to sift through internal candidates for superintendent; followed by another special meeting at 6 p.m., Nov. 1, for interview of internal candidates at Rawsonville, if the board decides it is interested in pursuing internal candidates. The next regular meeting will be 7 p.m., Nov. 14 at Rawsonville.