School Choice A Bad Decision For Plymouth-Canton Community Schools-Update: Public Meeting June 24 7:00 PM

The necessary disclaimer:  The opinions expressed here are my own, and in no way reflect the opinion of the Plymouth-Canton Patch.

The Plymouth-Canton Community Schools are moving towards a major decision on Tuesday. Most likely one of the biggest decisions in the history of the district. They are deciding on whether to open up the district to school choice. If they go to school choice, students from other surrounding school districts will be able to apply to attend Plymouth-Canton Schools. This is a box, that once opened, most likely will never be closed, and I recommend against it.

I have previously been hesitant to opine about this, because I am not a stakeholder. I have no children in the school district, and my points should be taken with that in mind. I do however have firsthand knowledge of the process that the P-CCS Board of Education has been going through, as I have gone through it myself. I can also tell you what can happen if they choose to go that route, as I have seen it first hand at the school district (Clarenceville Public Schools) that my children attended. I also experienced the brutal debate on this issue during my tenure as a trustee on the Clarenceville Board of Education.

Unfortunately, this issue all comes down to money. Due to the funding mechanism currently in place, school districts are now at the mercy of the legislature, and the economy as it relates to school funding. There is always uncertainty as far as the budget goes. Once that school funding bill is passed, the picture becomes more clear, but I have also seen it changed at the last minute to include more funding, which essentially made all the hand wringing an unnecessary level of stress for administration and board members as well. Bottom line is that school choice is a money issue, and unfortunately every child in Michigan has a dollar amount attached to their name.

What basically happened at Clarenceville, was that administration came to the board with the school choice issue. We had multiple study sessions, the budget deficiencies were made known, and the plan to open to school choice was brought to us, along with all the wonderful monetary benefits it would bring. There was this big pot of money out there, and if we took advantage of it, we would be able to fix our budget without laying off staff, without cutting programs, keep all services intact, and so on, and so forth. All we had to do was open our district up to students from our neighboring communities. It was a strong sales pitch.

This is what we weren't told, and had to find out for ourselves. You will have to provide more services, especially special education, and intervention services. Many folks who choose to send their children to another “open schools” district, are unhappy with the special education services they are getting in their own district. These are the costly services all public school districts provide, and they generally cost more to provide than the funding that the child brings with them, so in the end, when you do the math, you are losing money on these students. Remember, it all comes down to money. School choice is nothing, other than a money issue, and in many, not all, but many instances, the district is getting a student with extra educational needs that they are not receiving from another district, which costs more money for the receiving district to provide.

Personally, I always found it profoundly sad that we found ourselves in a position to compete with other school districts over students and money. In a perfect world, we cooperate with other school districts in a collaborative effort to provide the best education we possibly can for our children. If another school district was doing something that was benefiting their kids, we should try it too, and if we had strategies that were working, we should share them with others. Under the school choice plan, we compete against other districts, and it is to their detriment if we succeed. How is that good for the kids?

Remember one thing. If P-CCS goes to school choice, and they are successful in stealing kids from other school districts, they have left the remaining kids in that district worse off. That district will have less funding, higher class sizes, less services, more cuts, and on, and on. It's a vicious cycle.

Another thing we, as a board had to consider was the will of our community. This is where the debate gets really hard. This is where things get really ugly. I can say with absolute certainty that in our district, the prevailing majority, and it was a large majority, did not want our district to go to school choice. Folks moved to Clarenceville because it was a small school district, and they liked the attention that their kids received.

Many people move to a community because they want their kids growing up in, and being educated in a certain school district. That is a main identity of the community. In the Clarenceville district, if you said Trojan Pride, folks knew what you were talking about, and it didn't mater if you were 8 or 80. Everybody had Trojan Pride. It didn't matter if you had kids or not, whether you were retired, or raising a family. Trojan Pride was strong. You saw it at the football games when senior citizens attended right along with parents of kids on the football team. You saw it at Homecoming when we had our parade, and all the folks would come out of their houses to watch our marching band, and boy scouts, and cheer leaders, and all the other student groups march. Kids would line the streets, and us board members would throw candy to them. It was a tradition that I absolutely loved. It still happens today, but I am told with much less enthusiasm.

When you open a district, you lose your true identity to some extent. Granted, Clarenceville is a very small school district next to behemoths like P-CCS, but make no mistake, if you go the open schools route, you will lose some of that identity. Some will say it's only 200 students so how can that matter, but that is only this year, what will it be next year, and the years after? What number will they put on it in five years?

This brings me to my next point. Once you open up Pandora's Box, it will likely never be closed. That funding will come in, and it will be spent. New programs will begin. Staff will be hired. It will become part of the funding/budget forever. Unions will negotiate new contracts based on the new funding level that the outside students bring with them, and this will become the new norm. It will never again be “should we be school choice or not” but rather “how many new slots this year?” Or, do we go unlimited school choice next year? This is a decision that will forever change the district.

Other unintended consequences happen as well. Clarenceville had elementary kids that were getting put on Smart Buses by their parents, and dropped off at 7:30 AM for elementary school. Many of the kids who came from outside the district had parents who worked, and couldn't drive their kids to school. So elementary kids were dropped off early, and waiting for Smart Buses after school. They had high school kids hanging around the building until 5 or 6 in the evening waiting for rides home. These are issues that will need to be dealt with. Do you keep the building open and staffed for these situations? How much will that cost? Do you put them out on the streets in the winter because they don't have a ride? I left my front door unlocked for a whole school year so a child that was dropped off at the corner of my street and 7 Mile Road could come in and wait for school to start. He'd pop in at around 7 AM, and I used to joke with him that he was my personal alarm clock. The point is that there will have to be a plan in place to handle kids that show up super early, or leave super late. It is inevitable that this will happen.

Athletics were affected as well, and parents were really angered about this. Parents who had kids who played the sports in middle school, and paid for all the basketball/baseball/football camps that the high school coaches ran, were suddenly not making the team anymore. Out of district kids were making teams, leaving the in-district kids suddenly on the outside, looking in. This left many folks very disillusioned, and there were very pointed accusations of the athletic director, and coaches recruiting athletes from outside the district to come and apply. Does that make for more wins for your sports teams? Maybe, but at what cost? Actually, it's another identity issue.

There was also a sentiment that folks had when it came to bonds and school improvement initiatives. At Clarenceville, we used sinking fund millages to make improvements to our district, and folks who lived there, and were kind enough to overwhelmingly pass them, felt betrayed when the district finally opened up to school choice. The families you bring into the district will pay none of those taxes, but enjoy the benefits from them. There are folks that don't like that, and rightfully so. Many said that they would support school choice, if the incoming family had to pay the taxes that the residents had to pay. In other words, they felt that incoming families should be equally invested in the district. I agree with that sentiment.

Look, there is no easy answer to this question, but all I can say is that from my experiences, school choice is a very dangerous proposition. You may just end up losing big time in the process. Put aside the loss of identity, put aside athletics, and go back to the main issue, and that is money. You may take in 200 students, and the dollars they bring with them, but what if 50 or 100 leave to a private school or charter school because parents were upset about this decision? Where are you then? What did you solve? Do you take in 300 next year? 400? Unlimited? Where does it end?

The bottom line is this. Clarenceville never opened to school choice until I left the school board. I voted against it, because there weren't enough good reasons to override the overwhelming majority of the parents who were against it, and in the end, as a board member, I was elected to represent their wishes to the best of my ability. We found ways to balance the budget without opening up to school choice. If there is a true will, there is always a way. It may in some cases be painful in the short term, cuts always are, but school board members are elected to have a long term vision as well, and if the short term decisions are tough, in order to have sustainable long term success, it is their duty to make those tough decisions.

If you are a parent of a child at P-CCS, I suggest you attend the P-CCS Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, and make your wishes known one way or the other. This is a paradigm shift that will most likely be irreversible if passed, and your voice should be heard by those entrusted with this important decision...

I understand that this op-ed piece will elicit some very strong opinions, and I would ask that those who comment on either side of the issue, do so with civility and respect.