Grosse Pointe schools weigh closures amid dropping enrollment
Jennifer Chambers, The Detroit News Published 10:40 p.m. ET April 10, 2019 | Updated 12:46 p.m. ET April 11, 201
A day of reckoning is coming for the public schools in the Grosse Pointes.
After 15 years of declining enrollment — and a determination to right-size without opening its doors to Schools of Choice students — the school district will identify on Thursday specific buildings that face potential closure.
Superintendent Gary Niehaus said the district will present at a public meeting different scenarios under which a specific school would close that would include the operational savings, bond savings and projected land value.
The goal is to have at least $1 million a year in savings and be at least 80 percent capacity at as many schools as possible, Niehaus said. The district will also discuss the creation of an early childhood center at one of the existing schools at Thursday's Blue Ribbon Committee meeting.
"We have declining enrollment, and there is a consensus that we need to reconfigure our district," Niehaus said. "It’s a matter of getting (the information) to town hall meetings. Once we do that, it will be interesting to see if there is anything we can do better."
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/education/2019/04/11/grosse-pointe-schools-weigh-closures-amid-dropping-enrollment/3266819002/
