Detroit mayor: Dead mouse, cold kids, bad floor in schools

Detroit teachers are experiencing much frustration because the district is “starved” for funding, something the school system acknowledges.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan addresses the media, Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016, outside Fisher Magnet Lower Academy in Detroit, after talking with school administrators and Detroit Public Schools officials about the condition of the school. (For the fourth time in a row, Detroit came in dead last among big-city schools on the NAEP exam, known as the “nation’s report card.”) But how can the schools get their act together when teachers are so miserable and so much of the operating budget is devoted to paying back debts? “We refuse to stand by while teachers, school support staff and students are exposed to conditions that one might expect in a Third World country, not the United States of America”, Bailey said.

A teacher and former union president, Steve Conn, said the shutdowns were “great”. “The deplorable conditions in our schools have created a serious environmental and educational crisis that is being ignored”.

“While we don’t condone the action taken by a small number of our members, we understand the utter frustration underlying it”, Detroit Federation of Teachers interim president Ivy Bailey said on the union’s website.

“Based on what we find, the city of Detroit will take whatever enforcement action is necessary to make sure all Detroit public schools are compliant with all health and building codes”, he said in a statement. “The mayor even remarked about how handsome the classroom was and how the teacher was doing such a terrific job in such adverse conditions”. The district serves about 46,000 students in 100 schools. “We want to bring everybody together” to make teachers’ and parents’ concerns heard, she said, building on past efforts to highlight problems through letter-writing campaigns to state officials.

A group of teachers called Detroit Strikes To Win met Sunday night to discuss the sick-outs and a possible district-wide strike. “Thirty-five is the speed limit, not a class size”, said one. “We need the governor’s help as well”. Ingrid Jacques, an editorial page editor at The Detroit News, has suggested that the legislature “consider a future for Detroit schools that doesn’t include the teachers union”. “We did not invent this situation, but we’re going to solve this situation”, Conn said.

WXYZ-TV reports that the schools’ state-appointed emergency manager, Darnell Earley, issued a statement Monday characterizing the sickout as counterproductive.

“I care deeply about the safety and well-being of teachers in Detroit, just as I do the students”, Whiston said. I wouldn’t say that roaches and rats scampering through hallways are conducive to teaching and learning.