Plymouth Canton Board of Education Votes For School Of Choice

The required disclaimer.  The views expressed in this op-ed are my own, and do not reflect the views of Patch in any way.

The irony was heavy as Plymouth Canton School Board members walked in to Little Theater after attending groundbreaking ceremonies for a brand new middle school. They came to the Little Theater for this meeting because they were to vote on opening up Plymouth Canton Schools to “school of choice” due to decreasing enrollment numbers.

Despite a packed house, and despite the overwhelming majority of constituents that were adamantly against this issue, the Plymouth Canton Board of Education passed the resolution entering into the school of choice program. The lone dissenting vote was from Trustee Mike Maloney. He did however read a statement from Trustee Mark Horvath urging his fellow board members to delay this action until June 30th when a decision has to be made. Mr. Horvath indicated that the board could find the cuts to balance the budget without laying off media specialists and certified personnel, and they could get it done by the deadline. Mr. Horvath indicated that he would have voted no.

While Mr. Horvath was called overseas for work, and was unable to attend the meeting, his vote would not have mattered anyway. The final vote was 5-1 for school of choice.

The first thought I had when I walked in the door and perused the agenda was that this was already a done deal. Under the Action Items was school of choice, and it was followed by the first and final reading to adopt the 2014-2015 Operating Budget. I have sat on the Board of Education at Clarenceville Schools in Livonia, and we never once had a first and final reading on something as important as the Operating Budget ever.

Bottom line is they had to approve school of choice, or they couldn't adopt the Operating Budget. They basically just sat there and listened to all of these people implore them not to do this because they had to. State law says the folks have a right to speak, but if you think for one minute that their minds weren't already made up, you are sadly mistaken. If you have this pie in the sky notion that these elected officials were considering the pleas of constituents to find a different way, that was not the case. Not with this particular board.

It was a packed house, with many standing at the back of the theater. In my best estimation, (I quit keeping track about an hour in) the folks against school of choice outnumbered the folks who supported it, by about a 7-1 ratio. Like I said, it was overwhelming.

Speaker after speaker walked to the podium to implore this board to reconsider. A licensed realtor gave the facts and figures about how areas with schools of choice have seen dramatic decreases in their property values, and how that not only hurts the owners but also hurts the community as a whole in less tax base.

There were many who indicated that they had passed up other communities, and purchased their homes in the P-CCS district, because P-CCS was a closed district. One resident who is a teacher in another district indicated that she spent extra money to live here, and from a teacher's aspect, school of choice will hurt this district.

A supporter of school of choice indicated that while she supports the board's decision, she is angry with the state for underfunding our schools. A counter point to her argument came from a man who said that you get a certain dollar amount from the state, and it is your job to take that amount and make it work.

To me, one of the most compelling speakers asked a simple question. “What happens to the districts of the students you take from?” This is a good question. As a school board member, who I would assume loves kids, and wants them all to get a great education, how do you justify cannibalizing another district's children?

I heard Adrienne Davis go on about charter schools and how they are stealing kids, but didn't she just vote to do the exact same thing? It seems to me that if you are against charter schools, and what they are doing, you should be against school of choice too.

It is a tough issue to be sure, but I would say that this board just took the easy way out, and the district as a whole will suffer from a shortsighted decision. I would blame Dr. Meissen for this, but he is just like every other administrator I have ever known. They always want more money to spend, and then when they get it, they want more. It's a vicious cycle, and the elected school board is supposed to be the body that controls this never ending thirst for more tax dollars. This board only facilitated him, and next year, it is going to take more to quench that thirst.

I had a couple of other observations, and I'll point them out and shut up. The first two things came from Dr. Meissen. He pointed out in his budget briefing that by 2018, P-CCS will be down from approximately 17,000 students to 15,000 students. Well if that is true, what do you think the numbers for school choice will be at that point? Do you think they will hesitate to add more out of district students if their fancy new middle school has lower enrollment numbers? I'm guessing no.

He also showed numbers that indicated that if they increased class size numbers in the elementary schools by just one single student, they would make up 1.25 million dollars of their budget deficit. Well heck, that's just shy of the 1.4 million they get for school of choice. If they increased class size for the middle school and high school classes by one single student to go along with the elementary schools, they would realize over 3 million dollars in budget savings. I don't know that this is the answer, but it does show that you can get very creative in balancing the budget without opening up this Pandora's Box that is school of choice.

As for the board members, and their reasons for going against the will of the people, I will say this. Adrienne Davis told the audience that P-CCS was already an open school district, and she used the example that staff at P-CCS can enroll their kids at P-CCS. This is a ridiculous statement to equate the two. School districts all over the state of Michigan have done this for way longer than charter schools have been around. It is an accommodation to them made by districts that very few use, but we at Clarenceville liked it when they did, because it showed that the teacher or principal was personally invested in the school that they taught in. For her to use that as an example was insulting, and nothing more than spinning her decision. She followed that by stating that she wants full parental involvement with school of choice decisions in the future. Well I would ask her, what about all that involvement in this decision? Where was that? Again, nothing more than political spin.

Ms. Crouch spoke about an email conversation she had, and how nice it was, and how she had kids in the district, and she would never do anything to harm the district. Well that's all well and good, and I don't doubt her sincerity, but she failed to give a rational reason why she voted for this. An elected official is not supposed to vote with their heart, but rather their brain. I don't want rainbows and unicorns, I want good sound business decisions. I didn't get that from Ms. Crouch.

Mr. Barrett spoke, and promised that this was a one year only deal. That was his big point. A one year deal. Well Mr. Barrett, I'm afraid I've got some bad news for you! When you take these kids in, it is a school career deal. If they come in at Kindergarten it's a 13 year deal. Nice try fella.

Judy Mardigian spoke about how in 16 years on the board she has never seen a cut at this time of year. I disagree. In my years on the board you never knew what the heck you were going to get until this time of year, so you had several working models to cover all contingencies. I reject her excuse, and as for her 16 years on the board, I wouldn't get too comfortable in that seat, because there is an election looming, and going by the angry chants from the crowd, Ms Mardigian, Ms Crouch, and Ms. Davis should be quite nervous.

I already shared Mr. Horvath's words, and Mr. Maloney added that when P-CCS closed down a school in 2012, they had many meetings with parents and the board, so that constituents could be educated on, and understand the actions that were to be taken. He felt that a decision of this magnitude deserved the same process, and it didn't get that process. He further indicated that things could be done differently by the June 30 deadline. I agree with him. There should have been a longer process, and there should have been contingencies in place to deal with the shortfall in the budget.

Ms Paton spoke briefly, and I am not trying to be rude, but she simply did not speak loud or clear enough to be understood by me. In short, I couldn't hear a word she said, so I have no Earthly idea why she voted for school of choice. I will say one thing though. Generally when there is conviction in your decision, the words come out loud and clear.

In the end, this board voted against the will of the people, and I did not hear one convincing reason for them to override the will of the folks who pay the taxes, volunteer in the schools, and elected them to office. They have really left folks with no voice other than their vote at the next election.

We'll see how that turns out...