The Finazzo effect
Students in Pierce's ASD categorical classroom flourish under Joe Finazzo's guidance
Joe Finazzo can’t say enough good things about Pierce Middle School, his students or his colleagues.
He also can’t say enough about his role as a teacher in the autism spectrum disorder categorical classroom. It’s a message he’s eager to share when he visits classrooms at the beginning of each school year to introduce himself and help others in the school community get to know his students.
While Finazzo has worked in special education 17 years, 16 of those at Pierce, he previously enjoyed a career running a pizzeria.
“It was fun, but it was hard and it wasn’t anywhere near as rewarding as this,” he said.
It was his wife and his mother — a special education teacher — who told him he was in the wrong career.
“They knew me better than I knew myself,” he said.
The biggest rewards in the teaching profession for Finazzo come from the students and the staff.
“Pierce is just a really cool, dynamic place,” Finazzo said. “That’s the character the teachers bring. That’s the character my students bring, day after day, year after year.”
In a pre-COVID year, his favorite moments were watching the interaction between his students and their general education peers. This includes greetings in the hallway, kickball at recess, and gatherings in the classroom for lunch, known as Lunch Bunch.
“We’d have lunch parties,” Finazzo said. “We’d be jamming music. I’d be waiting for the teachers upstairs to tell us to keep it down. A couple times a year, we’d get Panera to come and cater our lunch and it was fun. I never had to recruit. The kids would just come.”
COVID restrictions have limited these activities, resulting in increased separation.
“I really like my kids having the opportunity to be social with their peers,” Finazzo said. “You can’t be social in math class. Times like lunch, recess, electives like art and foods, are opportunities for kids to be social. The times and the circumstances are really robbing us of those opportunities.”
In spite of these restrictions, Finazzo said his students still see their friends in the hallway — and each moment of interaction means a lot.
So does the nurturing environment he and his classroom assistant of 11 years, Annie Korkmaz, create as a team. Both describe the classroom as a family.
“Joe is phenomenal in explaining,” Korkmaz said. “He never treated me as an assistant. He always treated me like a partner.”
Finazzo credits Korkmaz for how smoothly things run.
“She is the person who keeps my head on straight,” he said. “She brings the calm. She brings the understanding. She brings the clarity. She knows what’s going on before I know what’s going on. … She has an insight and understanding into what the kids need before I do.”
Korkmaz has the same respect for her class partner, and so do the students, who immediately look for Finazzo the moment they walk into the classroom, according to Korkmaz.
Finazzo also keeps in constant communication with parents, assuring them he is on their side, understands their challenges and can work together as a team.
“And that’s a huge relief to parents,” Korkmaz said.
The key to helping students flourish, in her view, is attitude. Finazzo shows up each morning “always in his tie attire” to greet all students at the door by name. Students can count on him to help, whether he’s swimming with them, accompanying them on the Washington D.C. trip, or joining them at recess in the rain and snow. He also extends a hand to his colleagues in every field and fosters camaraderie among the staff by organizing after-school gatherings.
His motto, according to Korkmaz, is: “Making things look easy is the hardest part.”
“He’s very relaxed,” she said. “He does his job wonderfully. He always brings it to the next level. He is never upset, never tired, never complaining.”
Parent Lisa Kvintus agrees. Her son, Aydan, now a senior at Grosse Pointe South High School, was in Finazzo’s classroom for three years and spends summers with him in the Extended School Year program.
“He just beams,” she said. “He’s always smiling. He’s always happy. Never once in all those years did we ever see him in a bad mood.”
Kvintus credits Finazzo for bringing Aydan to the next level with his social skills, ability to focus on a schedule and fit in better.
“He is incredible with all of the kids,” Kvintus said. “He just cares. It’s hard to explain it. The way he cares is special and unique and we will never forget him.”
Nathan Dodson said his son, Asher, an eighth grader at Pierce, loves school so much, “on Fridays he asks, ‘when is it Monday?’ He absolutely loves going to school and it’s all about Joe.
“I couldn’t ask for a better person for my son — or any of my kids if Joe was their teacher,” he continued. “He’s phenomenal. He creates an environment that kids absolutely love, for kids who probably have the hardest time in school. Put that together and somebody is doing something right.”
Dodson added it’s difficult to describe “how great Joe is because it’s just how Joe is. It’s like describing how water tastes. Joe is amazing because Joe is amazing. He’s just an infectious personality because he treats every single kid like his kid. I think he absolutely loves every single kid in that school.”
What “says it all,” he concluded, “is the look on your kid’s face. You judge Joe by his kids and his kids are happy. That’s probably the biggest indicator of how successful Joe has been.”
District hits the switch
On Sunday, April 18, a significant change took place impacting school buildings throughout the Grosse Pointe Public School System — and few people even noticed.
Now that the school district has its own fiber network in place, it transitioned from leasing Comcast for its internet service to using free internet service provided by Everstream for 15 years — along with 20 years of free maintenance — as part of installing its own fiber network.
The cost of Comcast services was approximately $25,000 a month for the entire district, according to Garrett Kelley, Grosse Pointe Public School System senior network supervisor.
“The cost is high for a limited amount of bandwidth, especially as the need has grown the last couple of years, particularly the last year” during remote learning, Kelley said.
Previously, GPPSS consistently used 2 Gbps, or two-thirds, of its three Gbps network connection and did not have the capability to scale to meet its strategic objectives.
Kelley said he made the switch on Sunday to minimize any impact, but he was confident the process was seamless enough it could have been performed during the school day.
“It’s kind of laying the foundation and hitting the button,” he said. “It’s pretty instantaneous. If someone in the district was browsing the internet, they wouldn’t notice. But we were starting to exceed the bandwidth during peak times.”
One of these peak times was during testing sessions, he added.
“Now that we’re on the 10-gig Everstream connection, it’s similar to the fiber network that it’s such an increase of bandwidth I don’t the district is going to exceed it anytime soon. We might not even exceed it in 15 years, but we’ll see.”
The district lit the fiber — also with little fanfare — in January and February of this year.
“The interesting thing is that right before we lit the new fiber network, the high schools were starting to exceed the bandwidth we had so the timing was very fortuitous,” Kelley said.
Digging began last March and the project was completed in early September. The next step was to purchase the electronics that would allow the fiber to work in the buildings.
The key, Kelley said, was “looking at what are our needs today and what do we think we will need over the next 10 to 15 years and balancing that with the cost. Those are the metrics for how we decided what to purchase. The fiber is the piece that will always stay and we upgrade around it as needed. Given we have 20 times the bandwidth over what Comcast was delivering, I don’t anticipate having to upgrade anytime soon.”
The additional bandwidth supports the district’s increased needs resulting from the $18 million in the $111 million bond referendum earmarked for technology infrastructure upgrades, including new cable inside the buildings, new fire alarms and access doors, new bell systems, SMART Boards and other improvements.
On top of this are instructional components, including the bring-your-own-device initiative, online resources and textbook software, and Schoology, the district’s learning management system.
“When you take that from a top-down view, all of these projects from the bond project come together and you lay instruction on top of that, it’s all driving the increased need for bandwidth,” Kelley said. “At the end, the thing we can really say is that we’re setting the district up for long-term success in keeping our buildings safe and operational and educating our students. The fiber ends up being the foundation and we build everything else we do on top of that.”
Director of Instructional Technology Chris Stanley speaks directly to the benefits of these upgrades to learning and instruction.
“We are future proofing for the next 10 to 15 years,” he said. “We now have the capacity to support all of the technology that is out there.
“I don’t know if many districts have taken on what we have taken on at the level that we did,” he added. “It’s a really great feeling because I think it says we’re invested in the use of technology in education and we know there’s absolutely a place for it, which we certainly learned because of COVID, and we’re going to continue growing and learning with technology in the classroom.”
Stanley acknowledges the district was behind in this area.
“That’s how technology happens sometimes,” he said. “Fifteen years ago, we were ahead of the game and then other districts surpassed us. We’re at a place now that we can truly become a marquee district with all of the technology. And we’re putting this in buildings built in 1927.”
While the timing ultimately was good, getting to this point was a long and arduous process.
The idea of a fiber network infrastructure began in 2016 as a community project, Kelley said, led by Superintendent Gary Niehaus.
“We were trying to partner with the municipalities and the public library to build this fiber ring around Grosse Pointe. Everyone else backed out, which left the school district moving forward. Once we got to that point, we scaled back the project a bit as far as how much fiber we were installing in the ring because the school district obviously didn’t need as much on our own.”
Originally the district worked with Detroit-based Rocket Fiber. In February 2020, Rocket Fiber was acquired by Everstream, based in Cleveland.
Everstream has been “a great company to partner with and I’m pleased how that transition went,” Kelley said.
Moreover, terms of the agreement remained the same, including no ongoing fiber maintenance costs for 20 years.
“Most other districts that build their own fiber like we did, but without the partnership we were able to have with Rocket Fiber and Everstream, have to budget for that,” he said. “Things happen. Storms come through, trees come down, squirrels chew through.”
And since Everstream installed fiber within the same sheath, they are “invested in getting it repaired quickly,” he added.
The agreement also gives the district the first right of leasing fiber to other nonprofit organizations, including municipalities and the Grosse Pointe Public Library, which was part of Niehaus’s original vision, Kelley said.
Kelley learned in the process GPPSS was one of the few districts in the area that did not own its own network. While many counties provided initiatives to connect school districts, Wayne County was not one of them. Even within Wayne County, however, many school districts sought connectivity individually and GPPSS was “behind the curve,” Kelley noted.
Now that the project has reached its successful conclusion, Kelley and Niehaus — who worked “side-by-side throughout the process,” according to Kelley — can breathe “a sigh of relief that we finally got to the end here and were able to move the district in a positive direction and set it up for future success.”
North student creates fresh look
Jacob Butler has a flair for fashion. The Grosse Pointe North High School junior opened his own online clothing store in January called All Seasons Urban.
He woke up one morning and the name came to him.
“Urban clothing for all seasons — it just made sense. Everything fell into place from there,” he said.
Jacob’s goal was to make people feel good by providing clothing that makes them look good.
“When I wore something that I liked, I felt better,” he explained. “I wanted everybody to feel how I feel when I put on clothes that I like. That’s how All Seasons Urban came about.”
He started by googling vendors overseas. He would check out styles and order the things he liked. Eventually he acquired his favorite go-to vendors.
“Sometimes I give them an idea or they already have a piece they think I would like. If I like it, I take it. I order inventory and put it up on my store.”
The target audience for his clothing brand is age 14 to 20 and all his styles are unisex “so certain genders don’t feel excluded,” he said.
For his marketing, he focuses on platforms like TikTok and Instagram that appeal to a youthful audience, as well as Facebook and other social media, and maintains an email list. He also markets the old-fashioned way through word of mouth and handing out his business card.
The next step this summer is to rebrand his business.
“Once the summer is over, I’m going to take all the clothes down I have now and start from scratch,” he said. “Right now, I’m reselling wholesale clothing and honestly that’s just a starter for me. From now on, I’ll start selling clothing I’ve designed rather than reselling clothes made by somebody else.”
Fashion isn’t Jacob’s only passion. He also has a knack for business. The 17-year-old entrepreneur has set his sights on two additional businesses — vending machines and skincare. Having dealt with skin issues himself, his goal is “to give people with combination skin, acne, eczema or strange skin in general an alternative for skincare.”
Jacob said his education at North prepared him for these entrepreneurial endeavors. Of particular note was business class with Brian Levinson his freshman year.
“I feel like I learned a lot in that class just for that semester I was there,” he said. “I was really interested, I was really intrigued, I was really excited to go to class and when I left the class, I really knew more about what I wanted to do.”
Jacob is grateful to North for “all the opportunities that it presented me.” He also thanks North senior Mia Cassar “for reaching out and giving me the opportunity to share my story on the Peer 2 Peer Instagram page.”
Finally, with summer approaching, he offers a few tips on fashion trends.
“Things that are really hot right now are stacked pants, flared jeans and graphic T’s,” he said, adding big, sparkly headbands and cropped tops are popular with women.
To stock up for the summer, shop allseasonsurban.com.
Safe Routes to School
Safe Routes to School is an approach that promotes walking and bicycling to school through infrastructure improvements, enforcement, tools, safety education, and incentives to encourage walking and bicycling to school. Nationally, 10 to 14 percent of car trips during morning rush hour are for school travel, and only 10 percent of students walk or bike to school. SRTS initiatives improve safety and levels of physical activity for students.
GPPSS has a multi-year plan to bring the Safe Routes to School program to every K-8 school in the district using local resources and the federal grant program for elementary and middle schools. Maire Elementary School received a major grant for sidewalk renovations, ADA compliant ramps and educational programming in partnership with Grosse Pointe City, Grosse Pointe Park, and GPPSS. Defer and Mason elementary schools and Parcells and Pierce middle schools worked with the district and the cities of Grosse Pointe City, Park and Woods on a $40,000 mini-grant award. This spring’s activities will complete those two projects, but efforts will continue with district resources. A major grant for the Park has been submitted and is in the review process. A similar grant for the Woods will follow, and then the Farms.
While the SRTS projects were delayed due to COVID, educational activities from Earth Day on April 22 through National Bike to School Day on May 5 are geared to encouraging students to safely walk or bike to school through the end of the school year and beyond.
Planned during National Bike to School Day for Defer, Maire, Mason, and Pierce is a bicycle registration, with officers available to provide bike licenses for students. Parcells will hold Bike Registration May 26, completing three weeks of school activities and walk or bike tallies at their school.
The district is also seeking community volunteers to serve as corner captains, walking school bus leaders, and bike train leaders at Defer, Mason, Parcells and Pierce. Shifts last around 30 minutes before school and 30 minutes after school. Click here for a volunteer form. Volunteers must submit information for background checks and assist with social distancing and proper mask wearing. Assignments will be provided via email.
Contact Rebecca Fannon at fannonr@gpschools.org for more information or to be part of Safe Routes to School at your building.
Summer Spotlight
GPPSS is again partnering with St. Clair Shores Adult and Community Education to provide opportunities for high school students to earn credit through its 2021 summer programming. Classes will be both in-person and remote.
In-person classes will be held at North Lake High School, 23340 Elmira, St. Clair Shores. These classes are limited to Algebra 2, Geometry, Biology, Chemistry and English, with a cap of 20 students. Students will be enrolled on a first-come, first-serve basis. Once the limit of 20 is reached, students will be placed on a waitlist. Registration begins Monday, June 21 and ends Wednesday, June 30.
Virtual classes will be offered through the Odysseyware program with a variety of courses for students to choose from to reach their established goals. Students will check in with their teacher once a week. There is no class size limit. Registration begins on Monday, June 21, and ends Tuesday, July 6.
Classes run between June 29 and August 5. For more information on registration, class schedule and SCSACE’s summer school calendar, please go to the GPPSS Summer Learning link.
Registration is open for Summer Connection, a program for rising kindergarten to grade 12 students that offers courses custom designed by teachers that emphasize enrichment, inquiry and fun. The focus is recharging and engaging students while reinforcing essential skills for a successful return to school in the fall. Summer Connection is free for students registered with the district and $50 for non-residents.
Click here for the course catalog and program information. Follow this link to register for a specific course or courses. All programming is subject to enrollment and staffing.
Families in need of transportation to Monteith or Parcells should contact program co-directors Katie Parent at parentk@gpschools.org or Kevin Shubnell at shubnek@gpschools.org.
Families of students with special education Individual Education Plans will receive information from their case manager on additional summer special education supports and services.
A complete list of 2021 Summer Programs is available online.
School Pointes is a publication of the Grosse Pointe Public School System. To submit story ideas or Pointes of Pride, email info@gpschools.org.