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My alma mater, Albion High School is closing. I was always proud of going to Albion. It was a place of tough gritty kids. I really enjoyed the diversity and racial mix. I grew tremendously and learned to feel comfortable around all kinds of people. I enjoyed being one of two white kids on the basketball team and nearly winning a state championship.

I always thought everyone should go to a racially mixed high school and preferred schools like Albion and Battle Creek Central over less integrated schools. All was not perfect, not by a long shot, but I had a blast.

Now......they're gonna bus the high schoolers to Marshall??? That ought to be a huge cultural adjustment. Can anyone say "guess who's coming to dinner?" Or in this case, "guess who's coming to school?" Hmmmm.

One of the unexpected consequences of school of choice and a sign of the times, I guess. Expect more. So long Wildcats.


http://www.michiganradio.org/post/budget...igh-school
...

Albion "HOPEs" to arrange a deal with Marshall schools. ??

Maybe that deal should have been made before the HS closing vote.
I would not expect an easy agreement. Could be huge expense for Marshall.

Many more small districts need to look at consolidation.

^ I think it's done deal, at least as reported in the Battle Creek paper which is unlinkable this morning.

Thankfully, at least in my observations, kids seem to be oblivious to the racist issues that prevailed when busing was proposed when we were kids.

Am I alone with this observation? Tolerance prevails. It's the oldies who get wrapped around the axle with race, sexual orientation, etc. Hopefully those kids' toughest adjustment is the long bus ride.

Is what is happening in Albion like what happened in Buena Vista?

(05-15-2013 08:05 AM)DesertBronco Wrote:  Thankfully, at least in my observations, kids seem to be oblivious to the racist issues that prevailed when busing was proposed when we were kids.

Am I alone with this observation? Tolerance prevails. It's the oldies who get wrapped around the axle with race, sexual orientation, etc. Hopefully those kids' toughest adjustment is the long bus ride.

Unfortunately that is not the case in west Michigan. We raised our kids in Grandville which is only about 2% minority, and our adopted daughter was among the 2%. Issues started cropping up in 8th grade, though we did not notice at the time (or at least not connect it with race). It really became an issue when she went to the high school in 9th grade. Every day she would either come home livid with anger or in tears because of the way some of the girls would treat her. She was an honor student and cheerleader, and the worst problems came from other girls on the cheer team. We tried to meet with the principle who pretty much blew us off. We did have a sympathetic counselor who wanted to work with her. But their idea was to use her as an example to teach the other kids tolerance and acceptance. Of course this is the last thing a 14 year old girl wants to be at the center of.

Before the end of her freshman year we worked out a transfer to Wyoming Park High School under schools of choice. WPHS is/(was) in a working class community with 35% minority representation. She just blossomed there. Graduated in the top 10% of her class and was captain of the dance team in her senior year. She accepted an academic scholarship to WMU and enrolled in the honors college. (She was also accepted into MSU but chose WMU – great gal!)

Wow, that is shockingly sad.

belt - great success story for your daughter!

Grandville, home of Dave Agema and his ilk, one of the most intolerant communities in America and quickest to play the victim card when confronted about such behavior.

Ugh, I hate white people.

Thanks MH. It was a very difficult year for us as a family, but fortunately we were able to work through it.

Consolidation of districts in Michigan is sorely needed. A huge relief on the tax burden could be made. Don't even need to close any schools (although several would), just need to consolidate the districts, and eliminate a lot of the administrative overhead. Think if we cut about 1/3 of the supers in the state all making grossly over 100K a year. As well as their staff. Tens of Millions of dollars could be saved, and zero would be taken away from the actual in class instruction budget.

^Huge waste of money. The city of Wyoming alone (about 50K pop) has three distinct and separate school districts.

Maryland has the best schools in the country. School districts there are county wide. Michigan could learn something.

(05-15-2013 09:56 AM)Broncobelt Wrote:  ^Huge waste of money. The city of Wyoming alone (about 50K pop) has three distinct and separate school districts.

Maryland has the best schools in the country. School districts there are county wide. Michigan could learn something.

I like that model. My only worry is that a county like Kalamazoo or Kent would be extremely diverse. I'm not sure having one set of admin lead both Kalamazoo and Portage schools would work. They need different things. Or maybe it would be good.

Certainly would be interesting and save money.

(05-15-2013 09:56 AM)Broncobelt Wrote:  ^Huge waste of money. The city of Wyoming alone (about 50K pop) has three distinct and separate school districts.

Maryland has the best schools in the country. School districts there are county wide. Michigan could learn something.

Are you saying consolidation of districts is a waste of money?

(05-15-2013 10:01 AM)EA3 Wrote:  

(05-15-2013 09:56 AM)Broncobelt Wrote:  ^Huge waste of money. The city of Wyoming alone (about 50K pop) has three distinct and separate school districts.

Maryland has the best schools in the country. School districts there are county wide. Michigan could learn something.

I like that model. My only worry is that a county like Kalamazoo or Kent would be extremely diverse. I'm not sure having one set of admin lead both Kalamazoo and Portage schools would work. They need different things. Or maybe it would be good.

Certainly would be interesting and save money.

I would think if you were looking at the Kzoo area you could do something along these lines. (again none of these schools would need to close to pull this off...but certainly a few likely would and would merge)

Merge Schoolcraft and Vicksburg Call it the Southern Kalamazoo County School District for example
Merge Otsego and Plainwell districts
Put Parchment and Comstock and Kzoo Public together.
Merge G-A and C-S
Merge Paw Paw and Mattawan
Merge Gobles and Bloomingdale
Merge Delton with Gull Lake

None of these districts in theory would need to layoff a teacher or close a building.
What I listed above is 15 separate districts currently, that I've merged into 7 new districts.
In just the greater Kzoo area alone, if assume you are removing a super making 125K, and some office staff that combine for say 75K. You have already saved $1.4 million in salary costs annually. That doesn't take into account benefits, and long term retirement pensions that will not be handed out. Do this throughout the state and you can see savings of 50-100 million a year is reasonable. Without touching classroom channeled money.

(05-15-2013 09:56 AM)Broncobelt Wrote:  Maryland has the best schools in the country. School districts there are county wide. Michigan could learn something.

Uh, PG County and Baltimore City, much? Montgomery County might have the "best" schools in the country but PG County surely does not. I would imagine other than Baltimore County, Frederick, Howard, and Charles and maybe Calvert counties, MD schools are no better than Michigan's or Virgina's or any other non southern state's.

Michigan seems unique when it comes to how school districts are governed. I know Indiana, MD and VA are all county-administered school districts. I don't know if either system is better than the other, but I just noticed that Michigan runs its differently.

The tradition of "local control" is very ingrained in Michigan, in spite of state government's efforts last 20 years, and the community identity it reinforces would make it near-impossible to get total consolidation (Parchment would never join KPS, for example) or county-wide districts.

(05-15-2013 11:34 AM)MajorHoople Wrote:  never

Careful with those words.

There go Marshall's test scores.