FLINT -- State Superintendent Mike Flanagan toured several Flint schools and met with Genesee County superintendents to discuss the latest issues in state education on Wednesday.
“These kids are genuinely enthusiastic,” he said of the students at Pierce-Sarvis Elementary School. On the other hand, he found more challenges to address during his visit to Northwestern High School.
“The scores are really really not good at all and we’re going to have to have a direct talk and I think they will be able to pull themselves out of that,” he said.
The challenges for Flint Community Schools
His visit to the city comes at a time when the Flint Community Schools (FCS) stand to lose $4.7 million from Lansing, following Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposed cuts of $470 per pupil in education spending. That means massive layoffs are head.
“Depending on where the positions fall, if they’re in teaching staff or if they’re in support staff, we’re going to be talking well into the hundreds (of jobs),” said FCS Superintendent Linda Thompson.
What does change look like?
Thompson said her district’s message to Flanagan includes underscoring the importance of financial investment and setting the right priorities. Flanagan said Flint is like virtually every other district in the state that will have to do more with less, and finds an abundance of optimism where financial resources are scarce.
“When you have the funding it’s almost harder to make the changes you need to make. You keep doing the same thing,” he said. He promotes bold ideas like having students learn online and off school time.
“I’ve given state superintendent waivers so that there are some young people studying online on their own time. They’re not going to learn biology at 7am but online at night they’re learning it just fine and it’s less costly,” he said.
“As you look at the new technology, you can merge the problems with funding together with cheaper ways to get the same thing done.”
Other examples
Change can look very different depending on where you go. You may remember back in 2009 when NBC25’s Dan Armstrong investigated the arrangement of education programming in West Virginia. School districts are county-wide there. That means 55 districts for the 55 counties in the state.
In Cabell County, the district’s budget was $104 million that year. By comparison, the Flint school district had an operating budget of more than $118 million. That’s a difference of $14 million. The Cabell County system has a board of education, a superintendent and three assistants, a treasurer and a communications director. The county-based school districting model dates back to the 1870s.
That model might not work for MidMichigan, especially considering there are more than 20 school districts in Genesee County alone. However, it does provide some perspective. Recent district consolidations made in the last few years have helped balance the books in Flint, but Thompson said she’s not sure if the finances can remain stable considering the $4.7 million now on the line.
Feedback: What are your thoughts? Do you think local school districts have anything left to cut? Should the cuts at the state level be preserved? What do you think local districts can do to “reinvent” education? Comment below and share your ideas with us!
