Mayor: Teachers in sick-out should return to schools

All but nine of the district’s 97 schools were closed, leaving 44,790 students out of class, district spokeswoman Michelle Zdrodowski said.

Burton International Academy computer advanced teacher Denice McGee, bottom left, holds a sign as she and other protesters wait to cross the street Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016, in Detroit.

At least 88 out of Detroit’s 100 schools were closed after teachers staged a sickout, the largest in a series of protests that aim to bring light to issues the school system faces.

In response to the sickouts, an attorney for the school district asked a judge to issue a restraining order and preliminary injunction to force teachers to stop sickouts and return to work, according to court documents filed Wednesday.

Conn said he expects another sick-out on Wednesday, the same day President Barack Obama is in town for a major global auto show.

“People couldn’t miss the opportunity for us to say, ‘This is what’s happening and we really need help, ‘” Mitchell said. The situation is so dire that, in the end, Detroit Public Schools found it easier to make a Facebook post listing the schools that were still open.

Flack from the drinking water crisis in the city of Flint, involving high levels of lead, is also haunting the emergency manager who has handled the Detroit school crisis.

The teachers are pillorying decisions taken by the school system’s emergency manager, who was appointed by Michigan’s Republican Governor Rick Snyder.

Obama will be in town to tout the resurgence of the USA vehicle industry at the Detroit auto show. Other sick-outs affecting a smaller number of schools have taken place as well.

And last week, Mayor Mike Duggan ordered inspections of all the city’s public schools.

Duggan gave White House official Cecilia Munoz a tour of some city neighborhoods on Wednesday, after he met Tuesday with Detroit’s delegation in the Legislature to work out their strategy on trying to improve conditions.

The district needs what amounts to a rescue package from Lansing soon. The school district agreed to demands on staff meetings, sick leave accrual and a labor-management committee on curriculum, the teacher’s union said.

The governor has pushed state lawmakers to pass bills to overhaul the school district by splitting it in two, spending more than $700 million over a decade, warning of a potential bankruptcy.

Mitchell says the teacher’s union did not encourage educators to participate in the sickout, but adds that “the movement has grown”.

“We have oversized classrooms with 40, sometimes 50 students per class”, she said.

A report by Citizens Research Council of MI, a nonprofit public affairs group, said Detroit schools have $3.5 billion in debt and need to be rescued by the state of MI.

“(The mayor feels) the best thing for them to do is go back to school and teach”, Roach said.