Grex Aaypsi Conference

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Grex Aaypsi Item 3: Merging Ypsi school districts
Entered by hawkeye on Tue May 11 16:48:04 UTC 1993:

A story in yesterday's Ann Arbor news brought up the old idea that all
3 Ypsilanti school districts (Ypsi, Willow Run, and Lincoln) should
merge into one big district.
 
I'm for it if they can get Joe Yomtoob to run the whole shebang since
he seems pretty sharp.  It may be a good time for this idea because
Ypsi's superintendent is retiring (or being ousted due to the $4.8 Mil
deficit, if you ask me.)
 
Is this a good idea, or just another one of those "what if" scenarios
that will never occur?

9 responses total.

#1 of 9 by jared on Tue May 11 19:45:14 1993:

I think it'll just create more of a rivalry with Ypsi schools and AA schools.
it'll solve the Lincoln/Willow Run conflicts, but cause more with AA.

BTW, it's 3.2 Million.  I know, I go there.

#2 of 9 by hawkeye on Wed May 12 15:37:46 1993:

No, it's 3.2M *left* to worry about.  The initial deficit was revised from
$4.2 to $4.8M recently.  (According to the paper, that is...)

#3 of 9 by jared on Wed May 12 16:38:46 1993:

GACK!  I didn't know that they revised it.

#4 of 9 by tired on Mon May 17 02:22:28 1993:

What really could be gained by merging school districts?  Do you really
think the students could ever benefit?

#5 of 9 by danr on Mon May 17 11:19:21 1993:

Merging sounds like a good idea to me if the larger district could be
run more efficiently.

#6 of 9 by hawkeye on Mon May 17 15:56:08 1993:

Well, in merging districts, you could (theoretically) merge all duplicate
efforts and, therefore, save money which could then, possibly, be used
to go towards educating students.

#7 of 9 by jared on Mon May 17 18:01:11 1993:

That's true.. they get to fire other teachers, admins, etc.. to make things
cheaper .

#8 of 9 by mta on Mon May 17 18:55:45 1993:

Reducing the administrative staffs by 2/3 sounds good to me--but only if they
use that money to develop remedial programs to catch the kids up to
where they ought to be academically.

I've come to the conclusion that alot of the trouble with the schools
is the irrelevance factor.  At 9 am, you study math, at 10 am, you study
English which allows you to put away everything you learned in the
last hour as totally irrelevant.  At 11 you study History...but since that
has no bearing on what you've learned in the last two hours, you can put all 
of it away until tomorrow.

In some academic systems, children are taught in ways that connect all
their knowledge
They seem to remember what they've learned better and they develop a much
better understanding of what it all means and why they are learning it.
Maybe we should try that here in our public schools.

#9 of 9 by dana on Thu Jun 10 06:04:30 1993:

If Willow Run, Ypsilanti and Lincoln schools are merged, there will
be an increase in transportation costs.  There will also be a period
of adjustment for parents, faculty and students who feed on school
rivalries.  There know reason why school rivalries should erupt into
fights, etc.  It must be a sign of another problem when people fight
about it on the street or at Gus Macker.

Re: #8  What you seem to be refering to is an integrated
curriculum.  Some of the private schools around here use such an
approach.  It is promoted in almost all texts about curriculum
structure.  Why have not understood why schools don't corridinate.
For some reason they believe it is too difficult to coordinate.

Question:  If it is that hard to coordinate an integrated curriculum,
            how  could Ypsi, Willow Run and Lincoln manage to
            organize anything?  How can the MEA suggest that Michigan
            re-organize into 14 school districts for the state?

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