Well as far as I can remember, when I was in the 2nd grade, I remember my elementary school being closed down and my 2nd grade teacher begin assigning all of the students to different elementary schools. After that school year, they reopened that elementary school again and then I remember the school district closing an elementary school that was down the street from my home. They sent the teachers from that school to the school that I attended to in elementary and reopened my elementary school. I went back to my elementary school the next school year. So for a while, you could see the school district opening and closing schools, it then went to the middle school of opening and closing schools. I even remember my older sister attending a middle school and they closed it down in the name of a budget! So for a while the terrors of closing elementary and middle schools went dormant. Then, once I got in the 8th grade, they consolidated a middle school into my middle school (both middle school's were rivals too so I thought it was going to be a living hell, but it turned out to be okay in the end). So now, once I get in the 9th grade, you hear a lot of rumors about Benton Harbor Area Schools may be an all charter school because my school district cannot pay off their debt. So you continue to see closing and re-openings of elementary schools middle schools and so on. You continue to see consolidation as well. within elementary and middle schools.
So recently in January there was a school board meeting that i attended (I work at my high school, the only reason why I accepted the job was because my teacher wanted me to get the job, otherwise I would have repudiated the offer). The board meeting was talking about consolidating the remaining elementary schools and the final middle school that's standing. So they were also talking about building a new school with grades 1st to 8th, and the preschools and kindergarten schools remain at the same building. Here's where things get deep! They were talking about using TAX dollars do build the new school! but also, in order for this work the votes have to go through from the community I believe.
At the beginning of my senior high school year, there was a rumor that we were receiving a sid grant. This is suppose to be a grant that is going to grant us a lot of money to turn my school district around for the better! This rumor turned out to be quite real as well! What I've learned from going to the school board meetings is that my school district (Benton Harbor Area Schools) are in a $20 million debt! I can also recall that each student is worth approximately $7,000 (can't remember the exact number). During the previous board meeting it was so serious that the Treasury of Michigan was there speaking with the school board members. When the treasury got up there to speak, that's where I couldn't understand ANYTHING they were talking about. To be very honest, the only person in that room who I believe understood anything the Treasury of Michigan was talking was the Treasury of Michigan & also the superintendent of my school district because the only ones whom were talking were those people. Oh there was a new member of the school board that day too. I don't believe he understood what they were talking about but he was quite serious about how the heck did we end up in this situation?
So the sig-grant is suppose to extend our school periods from 7:30 to 4:15pm and gets out for the summer LATE in June I believe. With that said, I think I know how my school district is going to turn into an all charter school district. When they extend the periods many students will stop going to my school district and then our school with start losing multiple amounts of money since students are technically collateral.
So here's how my school district learning system will be, I picked this up from a secret presentation that's not supposed to be out for the public from my classroom (yea I did some bad things to figure out the truth).
Here are going to be the school system's learning system
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*Power Standards
*Common Core State Standards
*Michigan Expectations
*Literacy/Numeracy Programming
*Career/Technical Programming
*Skills Base Learning
*Essential Questions
I will be writing another article on this, this is just the beginning of how I see my school district becoming an all Charter School district!
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