The Future of Lapeer West High School??

And so it continues. Now the focus changes from closing elementary schools, to the future of our high schools, chiefly the possible closure of Lapeer West High School. The trends do not look promising. In the  most recent enrollment projections, for the year 2014-2015, the most likely trends are that we will have approximately 1951 students in grades 9-12 for East, West, and Community High School combined. That would be down almost 300 students from the 2230 we were at in 2010-11. While we will need updated projections in the next few years to better understand what is coming, it is not simply just about the numbers.

Many people are not aware that when a school building is closed, very little savings is seen from the actual building costs. Virtually all of the cost savings comes from the reductions of principals, secretaries, librarians, parapros, and custodians. For elementary buildings, the savings is around $330,000. It would be roughly doubled,  or $660,000 if a high school were to be closed. In our cash strapped times, the reality is that this could mean 6 teachers continuing to educate our kids, or keeping a building open, but there is much more to the story and it is not just dollars and sense.

Going from 2 high schools to just 1 would certainly impact the choices that our kids would have. Whether it is band, football, or clubs, their opportunities could be cut in half. While this should not be the main concern, it is no less a legitimate concern.

Then there is the concern about the resources we have put into West. In just the last few years, we have build additional Science Labs, and an auxiliary gym at West with a substantial cost to the taxpayers. These additions came from the Bond that the LCS community passed in 2007, While we can look at the decisions to build these additions and whether they were in fact necessary, the fact is that we must do our best to honor our commitment to our kids and to make the best use of the facilities that our community tax dollars have built.

Lastly, we must determine when, and at what point will the numbers say that keeping 2 high schools is not the responsible or feasible thing to do. This will be vital to making the right decision for our kids. Currently, there is a Facilities Task force made up of parents, staff, and members of the community that is working on finding out . I myself am on the task force and would encourage any who care to find the time to get involved. At this time and for the foreseeable future, we have way to many students to close a high school even if we wanted. But, if the trends continue, we will in fact reach a point where it may be better for our kids and offer more choices and opportunities to them to combine our 2 high schools.

In the last year, Lapeer Schools conducted a survey of our community asking about the possibility of combining high schools. It was a large sample of people both with kids in the district, and those with no direct involvement in our district. The overwhelming majority of people said that we should keep 2 high schools as long as it was economically feasible. I would and did totally agree with that conclusion. How ever, we must look into the future and be prepare for what might lie ahead. Our lack foresight has cost our kids and taxpayers millions and we cannot afford any more short sightedness when it comes to education in Lapeer Community Schools.

We all hope that things will turn around and we can return to the good old days. The reality is that we do not know just what the future will hold, but we must be as prepared as possible to give our kids the best education we can and make sure that the decisions we make are sustainable for the long term. For too long, we have made decisions that have not been sustainable for the long term. We cannot afford to get this one wrong. We need much more information to be able to make the right decision on the future of our high schools. Nothing will change for the foreseeable future, but as we travel down the road, we will have a better grasp of just where we are with our student numbers. We must keep all options open and do what is truly in the best interests of the kids. We all miss the good old days, but in ever changing times, we must sometimes learn to change with them. The fact truly is that only time will tell.

Cliff notes are not the same as reading the entire book.

  In the past, I have pointed out some of the areas where LCS could have done a much better job with the dollars that they received from the bond that passed in May of 07. It seems to me that our current circumstances are very much like when you are in a high school English class. If you have not fully read the book that you were supposed to, one of the ways that you can squeak by, is to read the Cliff notes of book that you might not have read through  a book completely. Yes, this will give you a basic summary of the book, but you certainly will miss most of the detail. This seems to have been the case with Lapeer Community Schools and the information that our Board was given regarding our future  student enrollment numbers.

First let me say thank you to Mr. Wandrie and his hard working secretary and FOIA agent, Karen Rowden. After the September 6th Board meeting, Board Trustee Mike Nolan made a statement regarding the newly passed changes to Board policy to make sure that in future, all enrollment projections and information will be included in the budget process. This makes all enrollment information accessible for Board members and the public at large. While this a very good thing, he stated that "This was not information that we did not already have." After several requests from Mr. Nolan for clarification which went unanswered, and asking the entire Board directly, LCS was able to get me more information and was able to waive the $200 that they were going to have to charge to look up the information. As I have stated before, LCS has always been very forthcoming when ever I have had any questions, and this is no exception. This instance is no exception and I am grateful for being able to get access to this material

What I was given by the district were 3 pages that were given to our Board in July of 2008.  This is important because it give a snapshot of just what our Board was seeing at the time when they had to approve which facilities, and where the Bond money was being spent.
Here are the 3 sheets I was given:

Enrollment Figures Projected July 2008

Enrollment Figures Projected July 2008 

Enrollment Figures Projected July 2008 

This one in particular is the most precise of all and gives a good idea what our Board members were told to expect. in future years.
Enrollment Figures Projected July 2008


While this particular sheet does show significant decline, it is a compilation of all the projections from the 2006 projections. Notice the difference and lack of detail as compared to the full projections that they should have been using...

Lapeer Community Schools Enrollment Proj Dec 2006

The 08 summaries also wound up being off by over 300 students for the 11-12 school year. Had our Board members been shown the entire sets of numbers, over 20 pages, they would have seen a much more bleak set of possibilities. While I am not saying that anyone was intending to get it wrong, the fact that we have millions of dollars in buildings that we are not now using is proof that we did in fact get it wrong ar at a minimum, done much better for our kids.

To recap, we had projections for years 03,04,05,06,10, and 11. Over 120 pages of information and documentation that our district paid a firm thousands of dollars to aquire. As of today, I have been given a total of 1 page from 06, and 3 pages from 08 that our Board was given to make decisions on how to best spend the money allocated to our children. There may be more, and I am sure that the district will do their best to pass those on if any more are found.

As of September 6th, the LCS Board has voted to include the FULL and original documentation for any and all enrollment projections in the future. Our current Superintendent, Matt Wandrie knows the value of a fully informed Board. It also seems that our past Board members did not ever ask to see the original and complete documents. Had they done so, we might possibly done a better job building for our kids future.

Now that we know some of the circumstances of why things were done they way they were, we can put this information to use and learn from our mistakes. We can make sure that we always give our Board members full documentation regarding any issue that they must vote on to approve on behalf of our kids. We must also learn the lessons that our Board members must ALWAYS ask the hard questions and look at the full long term sustainability of any program or project for our kids. In these days of tight budgets we must make sure that we maximize all the dollars that we have available. This is one time that reading the whole book might have benefited our kids much better than the Cliff notes.