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DPS to co-manage Highland Park district

Agreement is aimed at helping students

By Lori Higgins Free Press Education Writer

   The troubled Detroit Public Schools district will co-manage the fiscally foundering Highland Park School District for the next four months under a new agreement announced Friday by the state.

   An agreement was signed Friday by Jack Martin, the newly reappointed emergency manager for the Highland Park district; Roy Roberts, emergency manager for DPS, and state Treasurer Andy Dillon.

   “This unique agreement will ensure that students, who did not cause the district’s financial emergency, will have the ability to finish the school year at HPS,” Dillon said in a news release.

   DPS — itself in financial and academic turmoil — started assisting Friday with the management and operation of the district, including handling personnel-related functions. Martin will continue to handle Highland Park’s financial issues.

   As for why DPS was chosen, despite its own problems, Sara Wurfel, spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Snyder, said there were multiple issues, including that DPS is already managing some services for Highland Park; the proximity of the districts, and because it ensures Highland Park kids can remain with their teachers and classrooms. Leadership also was key.

   “With Roy Roberts at the helm of DPS, he’s really making strides at turning things around, both financially and academically,” Wurfel said.

   But the move was criticized by Robert Davis, secretary for the Highland Park district’s Board of Education.

   “It’s an absolute joke,” said Davis, who has filed lawsuits against the state’s emergency manager law. “DPS has its own issues, and for them to try and enter into an agreement with a failing school district is kind of contrary to what he’s saying he’s about,” Davis said, referring to Snyder.

   Davis said he would decide by Monday whether to take legal action to challenge the agreement.

   Board President John Hollo-way declined to comment because he said he hadn’t heard about the agreement. The agreement comes amid deepening financial turmoil for Highland Park — which has an $11-million deficit — that resulted in employees not getting paid Feb. 24. They got paid Friday after the state decided earlier this week to give the district a $178,000 advance on its March 20 state-aid payment.

   Last week, Snyder signed emergency legislation that provides $4 million to allow students in the Highland Park district to complete the school year despite the district’s insolvency.

   The legislation provides a supplemental 2012 appropriation of $4,000 for each student enrolled in Highland Park, mon ey that could have been used to maintain current operations under new management or to follow students who transfer elsewhere.

   DPS will receive that $4,000 per pupil. Highland Park has 969 students, down from 3,179 in 2006.

   “Our mutual goal will continue to be to educate the children first,” Roberts said. “Detroit Public Schools is willing to fill a role as current legislation allows to ensure that Highland Park students can continue to learn in a stable and consistent fashion.”

   Martin, a certified public accountant and former federal education official, was reappointed Friday morning to his role as Highland Park emergency manager, at an annual salary of $100,000. Snyder first appointed Martin to the post in January. But a judge ruled recently — in response to a lawsuit Davis filed — that the state review team whose recommendations led to the appointment had violated the state’s Open Meetings Act.

   DPS has been under the leadership of an emergency manager since 2009 and is undergoing a comprehensive restructuring to improve achievement. DPS students have posted the worst scores on a rigorous national exam in recent years.

OTHER OPTIONS

   The state updated a website on Friday that it created to explain the crisis in the Highland Park School District with a list of nearby schools parents can send their children instead.

   The list, prepared by the Wayne Regional Educational Service Agency, lists the names of the schools and how many openings they have available at each grade level.

   Sixty schools are listed, many of them charter schools.

   To see the list, go to http://www.michigan.gov/highlandparkschools and click on “List of Schools With Openings in the Area.”