Yes, 5,400 city students will have a requirement to wear covid protective masks again this school year.
But no, they won’t have any options to take classes at home on personal computer equipment.
The mask mandate has gained nearly all of the media coverage after the Saginaw Board of Education, unanimously and with virtually no discussion, approved Superintendent Ramont Roberts’ plan at an August 18th meeting.
This has been a big newsmaker, especially when none of Saginaw County’s suburban or small-town districts so far has set similar must-mask rules.
A bigger long-term story, however, may prove to be the attend-school-or-nothing edict. If parents oppose masking, no more home lessons are offered. They have no choice but to send their children elsewhere.
City school leaders were highly unhappy with the results of last year’s virus venture into home-based education via computers, and they are vowing not to repeat the experience this time around.
“We have to face the reality that in-school teaching is vital to our students,” Roberts said prior to the vote, in a Michigan Banner interview published Aug. 16. “We absolutely must have academic and educational support within the structure of the student environment. That’s what we are doing.”
It’s uncertain what would happen if a major Delta virus outbreak would force all schools, city and outlying, to close buildings en masse.
Still, city schools face limits within the strict approach.
Teachers may be encouraged but not forced to vaccinate, and Roberts reports that 16 percent in Saginaw still have declined to take shots. Also, he notes that only 65 secondary pupils took part in three August vax clinics that the high schools offered, and that the district lacks the capacity to compile parent statistics. Students who catch covid will face 10-day quarantines, but the superintendent notes, “As always, we can only rely on the parent to provide us with information relative to student testing results.”
Will the mask mandate cause Saginaw schools to lose, or possibly gain, students? The first signal could come with fall enrollment counts during late September.
Initial covid-aid investments
In the long run, mask mandates are less important than changes the city schools will offer with a record-setting $65 million bonus in federal aid during the next three years, in the name of anti-poverty covid-19 relief.
The Aug. 18 presentation by Roberts and his staff focused basically on hiring as many teachers as possible, ranging from finding new blood to bringing back those who have retired. Goals are not only to sharply reduce class sizes, but to increase personal tutoring and after-school programming. A school district known less than a decade ago for budget deficits and state takeover threats now is flush with money to pursue long-desired improvements and reforms.
But school leaders are not promoting this point, even though a stronger student recruitment push is supposed to be linked to last year’s voter approval for a 6-mill boost in property tax, raising $100 million for building improvements, including a consolidated high school. Families are paying several hundreds of dollars extra per year — homeowners through their direct assessments, and tenants through higher rents.
In addition to the new covid aid, part of this fresh financial solvency is a result of city schools’ own efforts, building a $19 million reserve “rainy day” account during the past five years.
And part, in irony, is due the pandemic itself. The district saved about $2 million last year simply because buildings were closed for prolonged periods.
The federal windfall mostly is labeled ESSER, Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief. School leaders can chip into this money — which they barely publicized during spring and early summer — to recover costs for such 2020-21 major outlays as take-home computers and other technology, classroom air purifiers and hand sanitizing stations, touch-free drinking fountains and nightly building fumigations. More importantly, they can spend ESSER funds for more teachers.
If they can find a dozen new hires, they’ll do it. Another dozen? No problem. Another? Bring ’em on.
This is illustrated with opportunities for regular staff and retirees to teach after-school and tutor, four days per week, at a rate of $29 per hour. Extra stipends also will be offered for teaching specialty classes that expand the curriculum and extracurricular opportunities.
Roberts and his staff did not outline costs or ESSER shares during their presentation to the school board. In turn, none of the seven board members asked about finances. At The Michigan Banner, we made repeated information requests during the week after the meeting, but no immediate response was forthcoming.
A quiet startup
Fewer than a dozen residents attended the major policy session and no parents spoke. This is in contrast to other school systems in Michigan and across the nation, where stormy fireworks have exploded.
Board President Charles H. Coleman Sr. says he sees no concerns with apathy arising in the city.
“There was a great deal of displeasure with the board previously, but the current feeling that I have gotten from parents and concerned citizens is that the less they hear about board activities, the better,” Coleman says. “It is not that they are not concerned, but they are pleased with the progress that is happening at the board table. They are looking at the plans for the new buildings and looking at how we are working with Superintendent Roberts and they are happy with what we are doing.
“I do not think that we have a perfect board, but we have learned how to disagree agreeably. We work together to achieve solutions which are in the best interests of the students. This is what we think the community wants to see happen at the board table, making decisions that benefit students first.”