A summer school preview of the academic year ahead in districts that reopen buildings.
(Photos: Detroit Public Schools Community District)
Gretchen Whitmer is expected to sign three back-to-school bills letting districts choose between online and in-school instruction.
Each superintendent and public school board would have to do a public review of their plan each month of the 2020-21 academic year.
Those are key provisions in legislation approved Monday by the House with support from leaders of both parties. "Educating our kids should not be partisan," says the Republican speaker, Rep. Lee Chatfield of Levering in Emmet County in the northwest Lower Peninsula. Senate versions passed Saturday.
The state’s biggest teachers unions, the Michigan Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers-Michigan, back the bills.
One vital details remains fuzzy, Chalkbeat Detroit posts:
The bills do not provide clarity on how much money schools will get this year, as the coronavirus-induced recession has depleted state coffers.
Still, school leaders now have a resolution to some key issues:
• Online instruction will be counted as equivalent to in-person instruction during the pandemic.
• The enrollment counts for 2020-21 that determine state funding will be a combination of last year’s enrollment count (weighted at 75%) and this year’s count (weighted at 25%). ...
• Districts will be required to develop another round of coronavirus learning plans by Oct.1, which must be passed by local boards of education and renewed by local boards every month.
Related today:
Detroit Teachers Vote Wednesday on 'Safety Strike' Over Reopening Schools
Summer school student in Detroit Public Schools Community District.
