Bridge Detroit (https://www.bridgedetroit.com/category/education/page/2/)
Virtual assemblies. Eating lunch in the classroom. Sitting six feet apart: These are just some of the changes students might experience when the Detroit school district welcomes nearly 51,000 students back to virtual or physical classrooms on Sept. 8.
Paraprofessionals, office employees and food service workers are the latest groups to denounce Detroit Public Schools’ reopening plans. Amid negotiations, support staff say they demand the same health and safety protocols given to teachers.
At 17, I find this work daunting but essential.
Last week, school principals started asking teachers if they prefer to teach in person or remotely. School resumes Sept. 8 for the district’s 51,000 students.
Detroit teachers have overwhelmingly voted to authorize union leadership to call a strike if the school district doesn’t meet their demands to start the school year online.
Nearly 40,000 charter and private school students in Detroit will receive remote learning devices and high-speed internet thanks to a philanthropic effort aimed at bridging the city’s digital divide.
Michigan’s largest teachers union says it will support local units that say it’s not safe to return to in-person learning.
Black students drop out of Michigan colleges at a much higher rate than their white classmates. That graduation gap is third-worst in the country.
Detroit Public Schools Community District’s school board and superintendent doubled down on a reopening plan amid complaints from teachers, students and community members who said it’s too early to return to in-classroom instruction. Now it’s up to the Legislature to make administrative changes that would support public school districts in online learning.
In what could be a precursor to battles this fall over school attendance during the pandemic, a parent group won a court battle to require coronavirus testing of summer school students in Detroit.