The Ypsilanti Courier
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Officials discuss school closing
By Dan DuChene, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: April 26, 2007
The Willow Run Board of Education plans to discuss a second school building closing at their next meeting May 3.
Advertisement
Hoping to eliminate $1 million from its budget, the Board approved closing Thurston Early Childhood Development Center and one other elementary school to be named later at a special meeting held earlier this month. The district has to reduce its costs by $2.9 million.
"This has been a long time coming," said Willow Run Superintendent Ron Ciranna. "All the buildings in the district have been underutilized."
The district has had declining enrollment for several years, Ciranna said. All of the buildings included, he said the district only uses about 85 percent of its space. This year the district lost 80 students, leaving less than 2,400 total.
A focus group made up of parents, administrators and union representatives made the recommendation to the Board, which was aproved. The Board expects to hear information from the group about the remaining building to close. However, Ciranna said the principals who have been attending the meetings since February have backed out of the focus group.
"They don't want to make a decision on closing their own building," Ciranna said, sighting a conflict of interest on their part.
Of the four parents in the group, two have said they don't want to make the decision either.
"We're not in any position to make an actual recommendation as to what building to close," said Rhonda McGill, a member of the group. "As a parent, I'm going to be looking out for the school my child goes to."
Another group member, Emily Brumbaugh, said, "All of us have a conflict of interest in naming a school."
The two parents aired their concerns in front of the Board last Thursday.
After the two spoke, Board President Claudette Braxton said, "The decision to identify a building to close is the Board's.
"We're not asking the group to make that decision," she said. "We just need more information."
Brumbaugh said she understood Braxton's statement, but has been getting conflicting information on the issue from others.
"There has been differing opinions on that," she said. "We have been told that it is our job to name the school by the administration."
McGill said, "We felt that our charge was to make that recommendation and it would be the decision of the school Board and administration to name the building that would close.
"We elect the (the school board) to make decisions on behalf of our school district," she said.
When asked why the group had been able to name Thurston and is now having trouble picking a second building, McGill said there were more transition options in closing Thurston.
"There was an ability to take those kids and transition them into other buildings," she said.
Aside from naming the second building, McGill said it could be too late in the year to announce a second building to close. She said there might be less of a chance of parents changing districts if the announcement of the building with plans is made during the fall.
"You'll always have fall-out when you close a building," Ciranna said.
Not all stories are guaranteed to appear
online. The Web edition contains a reasonable
sampling of the print edition stories.
For the most complete news coverage, we invite you to
subscribe
to the print edition of the paper.
TOP JOBS
