The largest such action occurred Wednesday when at least 88 Detroit schools were forced to turn students away due to a lack of teachers.
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Because it is illegal for public school teachers to engage in strikes in MI, educators coordinated calling out sick on Wednesday, forcing the vast majority of Detroit’s 46,000 students to stay home for the day.
Disgruntled Detroit educators have stepped up efforts to protest Gov. Rick Snyder’s plans for the district, its ramshackle finances, their low pay, dilapidated buildings and overcrowded classrooms. Snyder also asked lawmakers to pass his 10-year, $700 million DPS overhaul plan, which would split the district in two.
“Closing schools for reasons such as today and on previous dates further jeopardizes the limited resources the District has available to educate its students and address the many challenges it faces”, she said. They include getting rid of the emergency manager and restoring programs in the schools.
The new Detroit Community School District would handle academic operations, payroll, health care, employee contracts and computers. “We need more social workers and psychologists who are there every day”.
“It is regrettable that the Detroit Public Schools seeks to punish those who speak out about the deplorable conditions in our schools”, Bailey said.
Several dozen people marched in front of Detroit’s convention center Wednesday afternoon, as marchers hoped to be on hand when President Barack Obama’s motorcade arrived at the Cobo Center convention hall, where the president was touring the North American International Auto Show. The situation is so dire that, in the end, Detroit Public Schools found it easier to make a Facebook post listing the schools that were still open. “When teachers decide not to come to work, we have no other option but to close the schools”, Zdrodowski said.
The school district said it is trying to negotiate a bailout deal with leaders of the MI legislature.
In discussing Detroit schools in his State of the State address, Snyder focused on the debt problem facing the district, which is expected to run out of money this spring. Detroit Public Schools had five closed schools as early as Tuesday and warned that many more could be coming. The current manager, Darnell Earley, was appointed a year ago after serving in the same position in the city of Flint, which is now struggling with the problem of lead-contaminated drinking water that began during his tenure there.
“Some rooms are so hot because of faulty furnace systems that students can’t think.” she said. “We want them to have equitable learning environments just like our suburban counterparts, and we apologize for not stepping up sooner”.
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“This was drastic what we did, in terms of taking off, but drastic times call for drastic measures, and at this point someone had to hear what we were saying”, Dawson said.
