School News Network: What will will school look like in the fall?

For the past couple of weeks, our partners at School News Network have provide an depth look at the fall school planning that is taking place. School officials are looking at several different options. Weighing into all of this is financial concerns with districts looking at almost a $700 shortfall per pupil in funding.

Below is a round up of the stories written by School News Network’s Erin Albanese. For more on this story or what is happening in local schools, visit schoolnewsnetwork.org.

School and business leaders talk about collaborating to reopen schools safely. (School News Network)

What will school look like in the fall? Community leaders prepare for various scenarios

Last week several school leaders and community partners hosted a May 28 virtual press conference to discuss what school might look like in the fall. Instruction will likely start with a hybrid model of in-person and virtual instruction using staggered schedules to ensure a safe return, said Godfrey-Lee Public Schools Superintendent Kevin Polston, who hosted a Kent Intermediate Superintendents’ Association. The KISA is working on plans for all Kent ISD districts to utilize for reopening schools. They are collaborating with and learning from many key community partners, including Kent County Health Department, Spectrum Health, Black Impact Collaborative, and the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce. To learn more about the fall plans, click here.

Superintendents are calling for more revenue from the state and federal government as they address budget shortfalls expected to be far worse than experienced in the recession over a decade ago (School News Network)

Superintendents face massive budget cuts that would dwarf those in Great Recession

This is the first in a two-part series on how superintendents are preparing for budget cuts due to the coronavirus pandemic, while lobbying for financial relief from state and federal legislatures. As students and teachers wrapped up school, Michigan education leaders were looking ahead to the challenges they face in reopening this fall. They must do so safely while addressing financial holes they have ever imagined as budget shortfalls could be far worse than experienced during the Great Recession. For more, click here.

As many counties across the state see the coronavirus curve plateau or recede, fears about illness are fast becoming eclipsed by fears about budgets, and how schools will manage (School News Network)

School officials join legislators calling for federal help with pandemic-induced state budget shortfalls

In the the second of the two-part series, School News Network takes a look at how skyrocketing unemployment and shuttered businesses will impact the school districts’ bottomline. Reports by economists at the May 15 Michigan Consensus Revenue Estimating Conference, a biannual meeting where officials from the Michigan Treasury Department, Senate Fiscal Agency and House Fiscal Agency confer on revenue projections, indicated revenues collected for the Michigan School Aid Fund would fall $1.3 billion short of previous projections. That means cuts to schools could amount to $700 per pupil, a hit much larger than $470 per-pupil reduction in 2011-12 during the Great Recession. To read more, click here.