"Flint Northern High School will close as a 7th through 12th grade building. Students currently at the school will move to Northwestern and Southwestern high schools. Flint Northern will become the Northern Alternative Education Center and offer a new program for sutdents in 7th through 9th grade. The students who previously attended Zimmerman will move to Northern. Byrant, Dort, Washington elementary schools and Zimmerman will be closed."
The budget for the Genesee Area Skill Center is, and has for years, concealed a larger deficit in the district's K-12 general fund, said several board members and Mike Frawley of Yeo & Yeo, the accounting firm which conducted the audit.
The GASC is a vocational program operated by the district but serving students throughout the county and operating as a separate school.However, Frawley said, the state considers the deficit to be $4 million and the GASC budget has been allowed to be included in the general fund for more than 30 years."We're lying to ourselves," said board member Vera Perry. "We have to stop lying to ourselves and face it head on."
Board member Isiah Oliver agreed, saying the district has to face the deeper structural problems of an $11 million shortfall."I'm bothered, not as much at the $11 million, but by the fact that I'm digging to get someone to say that's the reality," Oliver said. "If that's the case, let's just deal with it."
One of those proposals included moving all high school students to two buildings.The other included a system of all three high school buildings operating as grade 7-12 schools.Both plans initially included closing Bunche, Carpenter Road and Summerfield elementary schools along with McKinley Middle School and Zimmerman Center, which houses Mott Adult High School.Under one of the plans, all middle school students would move to the building that houses Southwestern Academy and Classical Academy, with those students moving to Northern High School.That means Southwestern and Classical would still exist as the programs they currently are, but would operate as programs within Northern High School rather than having their own building.The other plan calls for moving all secondary schools to the 7-12 grade configuration for all three high school buildings.
Plans, especially at the elementary level, have been changing and evolving, board and administration members told the crowd.For example, closing Carpenter Road was abandoned after an outcry of community members complained there would be no elementary in a large area of the city. The plan became to close Pierce Elementary instead, but the board seems to have abandoned that idea as well.
Ms. Hazeldine and three hardworking students bury the Coolidge Elementary time capsule in 1974. The popular teacher now lives in Florida and will be 79 in December.
I've heard several scanner calls, with no cars available to take, about people hauling metal out of the school. This morning, we drove around the building. All the 1st floor windows on the West (Humboldt) side & most of the 1st floor windows at the back of the building are gone. They've been torn out to get the metal window frames. You can see right inside the building. A lot of the 2nd & 3rd floor windows are broken.Photos coming soon.
Photos and cutlines courtesy of Dave Starr.
