3 More Meetings Before Farmington Votes on School Closures

FARMINGTON, MI – Responding to what school board member David Turner called “death by a thousand cuts,” Farmington Public Schools officials and patrons got a first look Tuesday at Superintendent George Heitsch’s recommendations to downsize the district to deal with lagging enrollment and declining revenue.

Three schools could close or be repurposed, including Harrison High School, to offset a 12.3 percent enrollment drop since 2000 and loss of nearly $15 million in revenue from 2006-14, The Farmington Voice and The Detroit News report.

Among the remedies Heitsch proposed is the phased in, “soft close” of Harrison, where the final class would graduate in June 2019, completing their senior year at what Heitsch described as “a school within a school.” Harrison itself would close at the end of the 2017-2018 school year.

Board vice president Sheilah Clay worried the plan for Harrison would create a “subpar” education for students there. Board president Howard Wallach said that though the soft close of Harrison “allows for their community to some cohesiveness … it still doesn’t feel right to me.”

Also targeted for closure are Dunckel Middle School and Highmeadow Common Campus, an elementary attendance center. The three schools would be repurposed “to be better used in the community and be fiscally responsible with our limited dollars,” Heitsch said.

Other aspects of the plan include:

• Farmington Central High School would relocate to the Harrison site in the 2017-2018 school year.
• Dunckel would be repurposed for a K-8 Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) academy, beginning in the fall of 2017. Current seventh-graders would complete eighth grade there.
• Highmeadow would become an early childhood center, combining those already in place at Alameda and Farmington Community School, and its program would move to the STEAM K-8 Academy at Dunkel.

Farmington Public Schools is holding three more community forums on the plan before the school board’s March 15 vote:

• Thursday, March 3, at 7 p.m., Maxfield Education Center, 32789 W. 10 Mile Road, Farmington
• Saturday, March 5, at 10 a.m., Dunckel Middle School cafeteria, 32800 W. 12 Mile Road, Farmington Hills
• Monday, March 7, at 7 p.m., Maxfield Education Center

Heitsch said in a memo to the board that it’s important for the school district to begin implementing the plan next fall “for the emotional and financial health of the system,” but Clay questioned whether the measures are enough to close the $11 million funding gap.