Keep the Faith!

Highland Park district won’t close, group told

Emergency manager to tackle enrollment

By Bill Laitner Free Press Staff Writer

   About 75 parents and students gathered Wednesday night at Highland Park Community High School to voice their worries with Michigan’s newest emergency manager.

   Jack Martin, an accountant who lives in Bloomfield Township, assured them that the district was not about to close and asked them to keep their children in its schools.

   “Our first priority has to be to get these children educated (and) keep enrollment up,” Martin said.

   He was appointed Friday by Gov. Rick Snyder to rein in escalating deficits in the fast-shrinking district, once considered one of Michigan’s best. Enrollment plummeted from 3,600 students in the 2008-09 school year to 988 in September, officials said. Last year, the district incurred an $11.3-million deficit, amounting to more than a third of its annual budget, according to a state report.

   But Martin barely discussed finances, instead facing a crowd upset by the announcement Monday that one of the district’s two K-8 schools, Barber Focus School with 278 students, would close in about two weeks.

   If it does, “I’ve got 125 parents ready to pull their kids out” of district schools, parent Michelle Johnson said. Martin said students from the school could ride a bus for just five minutes to the district’s other K-8 school.

   Others said they had heard the high school or even the entire district might close. There is no plan for more closings, Martin said, but added that he has “serious concerns with the physical conditions” at the high school.

   “We need to finish the school year and graduate these young people, but it probably would be good eventually to pull out and move,” he said. The high school needs major renovations and downsizing, he said.

   “Thank-you, thank-you!” shouted school board member Debra Humphrey.

   High school senior Tekiyah Bush, 17, of Detroit said classes in the high school often had 30 students — “not that big” — but rarely had enough books to go around, “and you can’t take a book home.”

   Just a few years ago, the high school had more elective classes and more teachers than most Detroit schools, she said.

   Martin said he would not dissolve the school board, is being paid $100,000 a year by the district and plans to keep Superintendent Edith Hightower — who said she is paid $125,000 a year.

   “We’re already working well together,” Hightower said of Martin after the meeting.