Michigan senators overwhelmingly approved a bipartisan plan Saturday aimed at providing clarity to districts and flexibility to families as everyone prepares for the start of an unorthodox school year.
The plan does not mandate in-person courses for any grade level but it does include extra money for school districts and clarity about how they will be funded this year.
There is no reference to mandating masks in schools in the plan. While previous executive orders from the governor would appear to require masks for anyone 5 years old or older while inside, on Friday the governor said "we strongly encourage masks for everyone."
The compromise plan, a package of three bills, passed during a rare Saturday morning session in the Senate. Lawmakers meeting on a weekend signals a legislative desire to avoid partisan politics while parents and educators demand action as they try to keep children safe from the coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19.
The House is expected to take up the plan Monday morning, paving the way for the proposal to hit the governor's desk later this week.
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The Senate vote came the same day as the deadline for local districts to submit their plans for how they intend to educate students during the pandemic. It was not immediately clear whether this legislative package would require any changes for any district plans.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, along with leaders from the Senate and House, announced late Friday they had arrived at a compromise. The leaders had worked on a deal for days, necessitated by a divide between the governor's original plan and Republican-backed bills in the House.
Details of the compromise plan include:
- No mandates for in-person classes. Proposals passed by House Republicans required students in kindergarten through fifth grade to attend classes in person; this plan leaves the decision up to local school districts. Districts need to coordinate any plans that involve physically attending school with local health officials, monitoring local coronavirus trends.
- Funding is set at essentially the same levels as last year. School administrators were nervous that the state funding formula — based in large part on physical attendance at school — would harm districts where large swatches of students were attending school virtually. The legislation defines attendance so that students who are physically in class or participate virtually are both counted. The plan also waives the requirement to have 180 days or 1,098 hours of school this year.
- A requirement for teachers to regularly "interface" with students. The legislation appears to require "at least one two-way interaction per month for
at least 75% of pupils," according to a summary of the measures. The plan threatens to withhold funding for districts where educators do not interact enough with students. - An student assessment must be administered within nine weeks of the start of school, with a second delivered by the end of the year, in order for districts to receive funding.
- School boards must publicly reevaluate their plans every month. This is intended to provide accountability and offer more of a voice to parents in deciding whether districts need to change course throughout the year.
- Districts need to establish "education goals" for students by September 15, and publish "extended COVID-19 learning plans" by October 1.
- An additional $583 million to help schools and educators during a tumultuous year. The funding, included in the original House proposal, is intended to help districts provide online learning and adequate student assessments. More than $50 million is intended as hazard pay for teachers.
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For months, educators and families have asked for clarity from state leaders. The lack of direction led different districts to proffer different plans, resulting in some consternation among teachers and parents.
Detroit Public Schools already has announced it will start the year with in-person classes. On Friday, teachers in the city announced they planned to vote soon on whether to have a safety strike, noting their ongoing concerns about how they can safely teach in person.
However, the largest teachers unions in the state expressed support for the legislation in a joint statement issued Saturday.
“Legislative compromises are never perfect, and the revised versions of (the bills) under consideration in the Senate today are no exception. However, these bills provide students, parents, educators and districts both certainty and flexibility on key issues as we head into the 2020-21 school year," Michigan Education Association President Paula Herbart and AFT Michigan President David Hecker said in the statement.
Several Senate Democrats attempted to change some aspects of the bill, suggesting standardized tests should be voluntary and educators should not be required to report monthly student interactions. The suggested tweaks all failed, an expected outcome given the work behind the scenes by the governor and legislative leaders from both parties leading up to Saturday's session.
“My Republican colleagues have decided that at the start of the first new school year during the COVID-19 pandemic, they should add yet another standardized test to the long list of standardized tests that students will have to take," state Sen. Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, said in a statement emailed after the vote.
"I could not — in good conscience — vote for a bill package that adds new testing requirements for students and teachers in what is already a historically challenging school year."
The need for a compromise arose after nervous school administrators and teachers watched the governor and lawmakers propose competing plans for safely educating students.
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Whitmer's 63-page road map, unveiled in June, included recommendations for schools that corresponded with the governor’s plan to reopen parts of the economy in phases, depending on the severity of the coronavirus outbreak in certain regions of the state. If certain regions were suffering particularly egregiously, they would not be allowed to have in-person classes.
However, in July the House passed the Republican-backed “Return to Learn” plan, which required in-person courses for all students in kindergarten through fifth grade.
Although lawmakers said they included educators in their discussions of the compromise plan, school administrators put out a statement Friday denouncing legislative dawdling.
On Saturday after the plan passed, some Michigan administrators said the compromise was not perfect but a step in the right direction.
"For weeks, we’ve been asking for answers to some very pressing questions, and while we may not like all of them, this bipartisan package provides us with clarity as we work toward delivering the essential service of education in the most unprecedented times," said a joint statement from the Michigan Association of Superintendents & Administrators, the Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators and the Michigan Association of School Boards.
"As with all compromises, this is not flawless, we hope the legislature will work with our members and key stakeholders on any future fixes needed and we stand as willing partners to craft a more perfect solution."
The superintendents and administrators had opposed any additional mandates for testing students, as noted in their statement issued Friday. This opposition remains for the Tri-County Alliance for Public Education, an organization comprised of school administrators in Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties.
“Despite the resounding opposition from schools after this poorly thought out plan was announced last night, the Senate has rushed it through, continuing to ignore the real needs of our schools and our students," Robert McCann, executive director for the alliance, said in a statement emailed Saturday.
"Before this legislation goes any further, the governor and the legislature should go back to the drawing board, bring educators into the discussion and provide the solutions schools have been asking for for months.”
Contact Dave Boucher at dboucher@freepress.com or 313-938-4591. Follow him on Twitter @Dave_Boucher1.
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