Rather than that hint of fall in the air, there was snow on the ground for Grosse Pointe North and South sophomores, juniors and seniors as they set off for their first day of in-person school on Thursday, Jan. 28. For many of them, it was their first time in the buildings since March.
Freshmen entered the high school buildings their first time on Monday for orientation. Tuesday was PSAT day for juniors and classes were held remotely on Wednesday.
All students began in-person learning on Thursday, with Cohort A attending in the morning and Cohort B in the afternoon.
Reviews on Facebook after the first day were mixed.
“It was over-hyped and really the classes were the same as online. Boring,” one sophomore told his mother.
According to another parent, her children came home and said they “didn’t even skip a beat. It was like we were never gone!”
Another quoted her senior son: “It really felt good to be back.”
Board meeting highlights
The Grosse Pointe Public School System administration rolled out its return to full-time face-to-face instruction plan at a virtual meeting of the Board of Education Monday night.
The plan, a response to a charge from board President Joseph Herd at a special meeting on Jan. 20, proposed start dates of Monday, March 1, for students in Young 5’s to grade 4 and Monday, March 15, for students in grades 5 to 12.
This return will include a goal of three feet of social distance as the target; a shift of lunch operations at the secondary level outside or off-campus; extracurricular activities held outside whenever possible; and athletics continuing under Michigan High School Athletic Association guidelines.
The leaders of four unions released a statement expressing disappointment about a “presentation formulated without any input from frontline employee groups that represent teachers, secretaries, paraprofessionals and plant personnel.”
The statement cited exaggerations over the success of the hybrid plan that began Jan. 4; the number of staff with symptoms or who tested positive for COVID-19; lack of contact tracing among staff or robust screening system for students before they enter the building each day; the need for all staff to be fully vaccinated; and distrust over the new dashboard.
During public comments read aloud during the virtual meeting, several parents called the plan reckless, citing unknowns about the new COVID-19 variant and the fact the hybrid model at the high schools wasn’t even off the ground yet.
“To push through this hasty, unsafe return to face-to-face plan in March is tone-deaf, negligent and simply unconscionable in my estimation,” said Meghan Parent of Grosse Pointe Park.
“One of the primary mitigation strategies in the dashboard is distancing,” Shannon Byrne of Grosse Pointe Farms said. “… A full return face to face will eliminate the use of distancing as a mitigation strategy. Were our teachers and staff consulted about this full face-to-face plan that eliminates both distancing and cohorting, two mitigation strategies recommended by the state and supported by the CDC guidelines?”
Other parents said full-time face-to-face instruction was essential for students to receive adequate education as well as for their social and emotional well-being. Also of concern was the loss of students to private schools that have offered in-person learning since September.
Grosse Pointe Park resident Lauren Nowicki said she has pulled her children from the district and is sending them elsewhere.
“We have lost more than 500 kids,” she said. “… We have an opportunity here to win some of those families back by reinstating full-time face to face. This plan must involve the community, be well thought out, include teacher input and be implemented as soon as possible. … Many families are wanting to come back, including my own, but need full-time instruction. We will lose these families if we don’t act fast.”
“When did part-time become acceptable?” Ici Ollison of the City of Grosse Pointe asked. “… Please get our high school kids back to full-time face to face now. Our kids’ mental health and education desperately need it. My daughters’ AP exams are not being dumbed down for all that missing instruction.”
Before public comments, board Secretary Chris Lee clarified the March start dates were not a guarantee.
“I don’t want a March 1 guarantee,” he said. “I want you guys to keep us up to date on what you think is the right thing to do.”
“I do think it’s important that we have target dates,” Deputy Superintendent of Educational Services Jon Dean said. “If we don’t, then administration is not going to be able to spend any time finalizing plans. We’re going to be spending the next ‘x' couple of weeks talking about what the dates are going to be.”
Vice President Margaret Weertz agreed it was important to have dates for parents to begin to plan. She also raised issues of equity for families that can’t afford private schools or pay for tutors for in-home learning pods.
“I’m concerned with the mission about getting us back to five days,” Weertz said. “… I’m very satisfied that the administration gave us this plan today and I’m really looking forward to fulfilling that plan for our families.”
Treasurer Colleen Worden expressed concern about a widespread learning gap.
“I’ve read very carefully the emails and the texts and the phone calls and the messages that I’ve received from our community and I appreciate every single one of them,” she said. “I know this is a tough challenge to make a decision about. … But I don’t want our district to become a place of haves and have nots where people who want a five-day education if you could afford it can go down the street. If not, you aren’t given the same options.
“I also want to point out there are multiple school districts that are not far from us — Livonia, Canton, Anchor Bay, Frasier, Spring Lake, Armada, Richmond, Memphis, L’Anse Creuse, Algonac, to just name a few — who have implemented plans and have had wide success with them,” she added. “… I want to give our administration credit for coming up with this plan quickly per our direction and I have a lot of confidence that they will make it work because we are a top-notch district. I know how smart our administration is and I know they will figure out ways to overcome these challenges.”
Dean requested the board vote on the return dates at the next meeting to provide “clear direction so that the community doesn’t think this is an administrative decision or something you can splinter the board on.”
“That sounds fair,” Herd agreed. “We’ll have additional discussion and vote on the 8th.”
COVID Dashboard
Since last March, the district has relied on the Wayne County Health Department for its COVID-19 data, according to Dean. In August, Wayne County began publishing a weekly COVID-19 dashboard and created a letter grade of A through E by municipality based on several metrics.
Grosse Pointe Farms resident and district parent Geoff Horst, a biotech engineer, contacted the administration with concerns that the Wayne County dashboard metrics contained design flaws as well as errors within its spreadsheets. Moreover, while data initially was published weekly, this had lapsed to every two to three weeks.
For a dashboard to be helpful, it has to be timely and measure relevant, accurate and trustworthy data, Horst said. He donated his time and expertise to create a GPPSS COVID Dashboard, a local tool based on science that aligns with the current CDC document and its blend of data specific to school districts.
“The dashboard isn’t intended to make policy decisions for the district,” Horst clarified. “It is really meant to compile the data that would be helpful to school districts to make critical decisions like when do we bring students back and when do we do hybrid.”
According to Horst’s presentation, the CDC provides a breakdown of three core indicators: the number of cases in the community in the past 14 days; the percentage of positive tests within the past 14 days; and the school district’s ability to mitigate risk. (The district will use the county-approved risk mitigation plan for the third indicator.)
“Those risk mitigation strategies, like cohorting and daily checks for if students have a fever, actually allow you to have a good score indicator for the district,” Horst said. “The point the CDC is making is that there could be moderate to high levels of COVID going around in the community, but if the district is doing a good job of trying to mitigate that risk spread within the schools, you could actually have a safe scenario. And likewise, if you have a horrible risk mitigation strategy, then that’s not necessarily going to be safe even if you have low cases in the community.”
The CDC also takes into account secondary indicators, Horst added, measuring metrics such as weekly upward and downward trends in cases and the strain on the local healthcare system.
For the latter, Horst collected data from the Detroit metro area based on hospital occupancy capacity, the ICU occupancy, and the percentage of patients in the hospital who are COVID positive.
As of Jan. 19, the district's core risk score, based on the average of seven factors (1 as lowest and 5 as highest), is 3.0, or “moderate.” The overall risk score based on the secondary indicators is 2.0, or “lower.”
“Right now we’ve had a decreasing trend — a 14 percent drop in cases which gives us a very good or lowest risk score,” Horst said. “The hospital occupancy rate is about 79 percent. Hospitals typically want to run at about 80 percent, so we’re right on target there, and the same for the ICU occupancy. Finally, only about 6 percent of the patients in the hospital right now have COVID. That’s actually pretty good; you want to be less than 10 percent.”
The GPPSS COVID Dashboard consolidates the metrics and several trend graphs on a one-page summary each week. The data used to generate the dashboard typically is released on Tuesdays and will be posted at gpschools.org on Wednesdays or Thursdays.
Dean added GPPSS is tracking the number of students and teachers absent due to COVID because they tested positive or are in quarantine due to contact tracing. Each of the buildings has had a tracking tool in place since hybrid learning began in October.
“You can take a look every week to see where we’re at compared to where we were previously,” Dean said.
Superintendent search firm selection
Trustee Ahmed Ismail made a motion to hire School Exec Connect to conduct the search for a new superintendent.
“I think they have the quality of the people we need. I’ve talked to a number of people who were involved with recent Ray & Associates searches and I just feel we would be better served with School Exec Connect,” he said.
Lee said he thought they were both quality firms but preferred Ray & Associates.
“I was impressed with both the firms, but I thought that School Exec gave a better presentation,” Worden said. “I also liked the local connection that several of the members had. … I thought it was important for somebody to have knowledge of the community and what the community needs.”
“We need a firm that balances a broad, diverse national talent network with a broad understanding of our schools and communities,” Trustee David Brumbaugh said, adding he felt School Exec Connect represented a better mix of attributes.
The board voted 6-1 to hire School Exec Connect, with Lee opposing the motion.
Budget amendment
Deputy Superintendent for Business and Operations Amanda Matheson reviewed the first budget amendment for the year, to be approved at the Feb. 8 meeting.
Significant changes from when the original budget was adopted in June included summer hires and the assumption of a cut of $600 per pupil from the state foundation allowance when, in fact, the per-pupil amount held steady at $10,224.
The other significant change was due to a decline in enrollment of 526 based on the fall count of full-time equivalent students, known as FTEs.
Even without COVID, the district is in a declining enrollment environment, Matheson said, with the number of students graduating each year greater than the number of incoming kindergarten students.
“We engaged Plante Moran CRESA to complete an enrollment projection for us,” Matheson said. “Based on that projection last spring, we had estimated that we would be down 200 FTE students. After we adopted the original budget, the state finalized the School Aid Act and we now have a super blend for this year. That super blend is taking into consideration the pupil count from the 2019-20 fiscal year as well as a portion of our pupil count from this year and allows us to realize an FTE reduction of 122.49 FTE.
“With the increase in foundation allowance compared to budget as well as faring a little bit better on the FTE, we do have a state aid increase of approximately $2.7 million,” Matheson continued, adding local revenue was down slightly. While there were no adjustments in property tax values, the district didn’t receive the revenue it typically would from student participation in athletics and gate receipts from games and events.
A federal grant revenue of $2.6 million in coronavirus relief funds received in August that typically would have been reported as part of the previous year is required to be counted as revenue this fiscal year because the legislature didn’t vote on it until July, Matheson said.
The district also received $359,010 from the Education Stabilization Fund. A remaining increase of $238,129 is from the carryover of unspent federal grants from the prior fiscal year.
“There were a lot of things that didn't happen last year due to the closure of schools in March and we were allowed to carry over those funds into this year,” Matheson explained.
The budget amendment also includes staffing adjustments, materials and supplies and One GP Virtual expenses unique to this year. The cost of settling employee contracts is also incorporated into the amendment, as these were not finalized before the adoption of the original budget in June.
Overall revenues fell short of expenditures, resulting in $3,499,342 coming out of the fund equity, leaving the district with an estimate of $14,883,690, or the equivalent of 14.65 percent of total expenditures for the year.
“That's a good place to be in our fund balance,” Matheson said. “Around 15 percent is where we want to be. If we fall too much short of that, then we end up having to draw on our line of credit in order to get us through the points where we have low cash flow for the year, so I’m happy to be reporting that we will be able to maintain right around that 15 percent mark at this time.
“I would normally tell you that the first budget amendment is the most accurate amendment for the school year’s budget,” she added. “Not this year. We are anticipating additional federal funds. However, I would not include that in a budget amendment until we actually have that in an approved format. There is potential for us to get about $1.5 million in additional (Education Stabilization Funds) as well as an additional $2.8 million in coronavirus relief funds. None of that is finalized yet. Once it becomes finalized, we would incorporate that into our next available amendment.”
Executive administrator contract extensions
Also to be voted on at the next meeting is the approval of a one-year extension of the current contracts for members of the executive administrative team — Dean, Director of Secondary Instruction Maureen Bur, Director of Pre-K to Elementary Instruction Keith Howell and Director of Student Services Stefanie Hayes.
As a result of this one-year extension — what Weertz called “routine in nature” — contracts would expire on June 30, 2023; the terms and conditions, including salaries and merit pay eligibility, would remain unchanged from the current contract.
Matheson, hired last spring with a three-year contract, was not part of the proposal.
Brumbaugh asked if it would be possible to delay the extension of the contracts until the new superintendent was hired. Ismail, too, suggested a new superintendent might have a different management style.
“Maybe we could come up with some kind of a modification to it so that the superintendent that is coming in puts his team together,” he said.
“Superintendents generally come in and learn how to work with the team that is assembled, a team that I’m really proud of,” Weertz said. “… All the superintendents I’ve worked with don’t come in and replace top-level administrators. They actually need them to learn the ropes of this district and the details of this district. I would say that this is very important to approve this at the next meeting. … This (affects) only four people. It gives them the indication that we really appreciate their work and we want their employment continued.”
Herd said there would be continued discussion before the vote at the Feb. 8 meeting.
Thank you for the great coverage!