More Detroit schools closed; mayor to tour some buildings

Update: Duggan told the Associated Press after touring schools Tuesday that he saw a dead mouse, cold children wearing coats in classrooms and a warped gym floor.

Detroit public schools officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Thousands of students have a free day in Detroit after teachers launched a sick-out that forced the closure of at least 60 schools.

Two dozen Detroit schools are closed again Tuesday because too many teachers have called off work. “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.

“No child in Flint should have to drink lead in water and no child in Detroit should have to learn under such conditions”, Hecker said.

Unlike some mayors, Duggan has no control over the city’s public schools. But union officials complained Monday about conditions in the schools after about half of them had to close because of a wave of teacher absences described by an activist as “rolling strikes”.

Michigan’s schools chief wants to meet with the state-appointed emergency manager for Detroit’s public schools to discuss health and safety concerns in district buildings.

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.

Darnell Earley, emergency manager of Detroit Public Schools, has been meeting with the governor’s administration and legislators, the district said on Facebook.

“The sick-out is a response to some of the deplorable conditions that the students find themselves in”, DPS graduate and teacher Tracy Russell, who has three children in the district, explained. A $715m proposal to overhaul the failing district in 2016 proposed by Gov. Rick Snyder has received little support thus far, The Guardian said. But the strategy, in which so many teachers call in ill that classes must be cancelled, has raised some local officials’ ire – and the union’s own push for change. “The mayor even remarked about how handsome the classroom was and how the teacher was doing such a terrific job in such adverse conditions”.

Be Civil – It’s OK to have a difference in opinion but there’s no need to be a jerk.

The Detroit Federation of Teachers is not part of the sick-out, which teachers have undertaken to protest pay and large class sizes, among other things. “The successes that happen in classrooms every day, both academic and emotional, largely go unseen, and most can not be measured or displayed on a data wall”.