FLINT -- Next year, Bryant Elementary school will close for good. It’s tough to hear for mother Summer Snead, who moved her kids there after Bunche Elementary School closed at the end of last school year.
"When they get comfortable at one school they have to move to another,” Snead said.
As part of the Flint school board's major overhaul approved Wednesday night, Dort and Washington elementary schools will also close. The Brownell/Holmes campus will re-open with a focus on science, technology, engineering and math education. Flint Northern High School - the Home of the Champions - will no longer be a high school and instead house a new alternative program for 7th through 9th grade.
Interim Superintendent Larry Watkins said, “We're moving into a better building with better programs. that's the key."
He said the decisions aren’t part of just a cost-cutting game. Watkins said he wants Flint students to be academic frontrunners and closing aging facilities is the first step.
"It's not about the building,” Watkins said, “It's about our students having the best educational opportunity that they can."
Flint Northern students will move to Northwestern High School and Southwestern Academy.
Watkins did not elaborate on how much savings the district will see from the closures and reconfigurations.
The district faces a $4 million deficit.
