Lansing Rally for Education is 'Rain or Shine' Event

Rain or shine, concerned parents and educators are headed to Lansing today to rally on key education issues: school funding and bullying.

State lawmakers want to take money previously set aside for kindergarten through 12th grade public education and use it elsewhere. Some of the money would be diverted to universities and community colleges. Another portion would be used to help reduce the state's $1.6 billion in debt.

While the figure hasn't been finalized -- Senate and House budget bills are being reconciled this week -- school districts across the state are looking at losing nearly $450 per pupil in state aid.

That translates into a loss of more than $15 million for, the third-largest district in the state. The change in state funding has led to Plymouth-Canton officials to propose $18 million in cuts, including letting 269 employees go and closing . The proposed budget also called for increasing class sizes by 2 students in each grade.

Judy Mardigian, Plymouth-Canton school board's treasurer, said the district faces "the biggest wholesale class size increases that I can remember since I got involved 18 years ago."

Mardgian said she got involved in education during a fight to reduce class sizes more than 18 years ago, at a time when fourth and fifth grade classes had between 34 and 37 students. Current figures cap kindergarten at 26 per kindergarten; first through third grades at 29; fourth and fifth grades at 30; and middle and high school classes at 33.

"This is the tsunami we saw coming," said John Jackson, Plymouth-Canton's school board president, after Michigan Representatives approved a bill cutting funding by $426 per student. He said the overall impact of the cuts will be "huge … Once again, Lansing has imposed cuts and not provided tools to help such as retirement reform which, by the way, is going to go up and be tacked on to top of this cut.  This is a sad day for our children and the State of Michigan."

Jackson said he plans on being at today's funding rally at 1 p.m. with other school officials and parents.

Denise Zander and Sheila Paton, co-chairwomen of the Plymouth-Canton Community Schools' Legislative Action Network, also plan to be there. Paton is scheduled to speak to the crowd assembled on the State Capitol's steps.

"It's supposed to be a statewide rally," Paton said, ticking off other school districts which will be represented: Northville, West Bloomfield, Farmington, Walled Lake, Novi, Clarkston, Lansing and Dearborn, among others. Like Paton, Anita Bartschat of Northville's Legislative Action Network Leadership Team is scheduled to speak.

The rally is sponsored by the Parent-Teacher Association of Michigan.

Paton said she hopes to see a big crowd but said the event is a bit of a "Catch 22" for teachers, who are scheduled to be in class. She said many parents are supportive but have said they cannot make the trip.

"Honestly, I don't think the vast majority of parents recognize what this is going to look like if these funding cuts take place," she said.

Paton is hopeful that recent news that the state's financial situation might be better than expected-- with a possibility of an additional $500 million in revenue--might ease some of the pressure on schools.

Still, she said, state funding cuts are being combined with pressure by lawmakers for education reforms which she said "are just not reasonable.

"I think there's a lot of things they can do that would make sense and not go against their current philosophy," Paton said.

Michigan Rep. Kurt Heise (R-Plymouth), who has two children in Plymouth-Canton schools, voted against the House bill, and said cuts are inevitable. He said he would like to minimize the severity of cuts to the schools he represents (Wayne-Westland, Plymouth-Canton and Northville), but said that it will be an uphill battle.