Many public school teachers are given the option to either take their pay over the course of the nine-to-10 months of the school year or to stretch it out and be paid across 12 months. In protest, area teachers staged “sickouts”. “It’s a shame that my Republican colleagues are more focused on punishing hardworking teachers who dared to speak out about the conditions of Detroit schools rather than on the need Detroit children have for safe schools and a quality education”.
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Detroit teachers returned to classrooms today after the district’s emergency manager pledged to pay employees for work already done, despite the city school system’s financial troubles.
“And what’s worse is it’s not even clear what happened to that money that was supposed to go to teacher salaries”, he continued.
The Michigan Senate in March passed a $715 million fix that would resolve the school system’s debt and create a new, debt-free school system. That’s a key part of a plan the Senate has approved, but a point of contention for some House Republicans.
The district has been under the authority of a state-appointed emergency manager since 2009.
Prohibit the teachers union from negotiating the school calendar and work schedule and require principals and administrators to reapply for their jobs. I want them to want it to work.
Math specialist Iris Phipps greeted children Wednesday morning as they streamed through the doors of Louis Pasteur Elementary in northwest Detroit.
Under the Senate plan, a charter school operator could still open a school without commission approval if it “replicates” an existing school that received an A or B for three consecutive years under a newly proposed letter-grade system.
“If you look at the house appropriations committee passing bills that don’t deal with the debt in its entirety, it’s just another method to set the district up for failure”, Banks said.
The Republican-controlled House presented the plan after 15 hours of deliberation involving private caucus meetings, declaring that the sum would not only ensure teachers’ pay over the coming break, but would also eliminate the district’s debt. Rep. Henry Yanez, D-Sterling Heights, said, in describing his opposition, that the measure would “legislatively bust the union”. “It is a fundamental right to be paid for the work one does”.
Detroit Public Schools (DPS) announced that the 94 closed schools were expected to reopen in a Facebook post late Tuesday evening.
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Appoint a seven-member transition school board that would be in place until an elected school board took over on January 1, 2018.
