At Issue
‘The district is making cuts that impact learning’
From
Sandy Wilson’s ESP perch in
the Kenowa Hills district near Grand
Rapids, he sees the same disturbing trends
that are negatively impacting the education
community across all of Michigan.
The MEA Board member and past recipient of MEA’s Leon Brunner Award for distinguished service to ESP causes doesn’t like the view.
“Privatization is a huge threat around the state,” Wilson said. “School boards are using it as a scare tactic to get concessions. It has to be taken seriously.”
In his own district, when MEA-member custodial employees retire or leave the district, they’re replaced by private-sector workers, he said.
“They’re not threatening a mass privatization of jobs, they’re picking us off one by one,” he said.
Like other districts in the state, Kenowa Hills has made substantial budget cuts,“some across-the-board, some specific,” Wilson said. “We now have no field trips, the classroom supply budget is minimal—our district is making the kinds of cuts that impact the learning of our students.”