Letter To The Editor: Don't Forget to Talk About 'Plan B' on High Schools
The BHS board and administration wants voters to focus on preferred plan for high school consolidation, but do enough know about alternative plan?
Much has been said about the need to bring the high school issue to an end. Fortunately, if the District is true to its word, the May 8 election, after multiple tries, will do just that – one way or another. Both plans put forth by the District are academically workable according to Superintendent Glass. Plan A, that preferred by the District, has been defined in precise detail and thoroughly vetted with the community. That is good. I believe some of the details, like what is planned for all the Lahser facilities, are still not general public knowledge. That is not good.
The second plan, Plan B (what will be done if the District preferred plan is rejected), has been sketched out. It was not presented in any detail during the town hall meetings. In fact, many of the few details we have today were not available for review at those meetings. That is unfortunate.
As a consequence of the rush to a vote in May, Plan B is not as well defined or its existence as widely known as it should be. It is probably even more spartan than B-20/20 might like and would have supported.
The leadership of B-20/20, and I am not that leadership, has said and I quote, “Let's preserve our two small high school FACILITIES and have ONE principal and ONE asst. principal and use Lahser for 9th grade and Model, and use Andover for 10-12th grades. All sports teams can be "unified" Bloomfield teams. 9th graders can participate in Freshman teams at Lahser. 10-12 can do "JV" or Varsity at Andover. Therefore, we could save money and still continue to operate two small high school facilities. Each school facility AHS and LHS would benefit from about $10-$15 million in upgrades to plumbing, heating, cooling, lighting and "cosmetics."
That sounds like Plan B, as proposed by the District, to me.
That B -20/20 leader went on to say, “I would be likely to vote YES for a $30-million bond to upgrade our two small high schools, but no one has ever offered me that "reasonable" option.”
Now granted, it may cost about $1.5 million more a year to operate Plan B than Plan A, but it costs $30 million rather than $79 million. Those costs could both be offset by the same $20 million the District has found to subsidize Plan A.
You tout the concept of “enabling students to become the architect of their future.” It is time for you to step back and allow the taxpayers also to be “architects of their future.” Present Plan A as your preference, but please do not resort to maligning Plan B as irresponsible. It is not too late to explain Plan B and present it as an option reasonable people can support, even if you support Plan A.
John Roach,
Bloomfield Hills
The viewpoints in this letter are those of the writer, and Patch is not responsible for any ideas portrayed as facts. For questions and clarifications, please leave a comment below or contact editor Art Aisner at Art.Aisner@patch.com.
About this column: Sound off on your favorite causes and complaints. Tell your neighbors about something they may not have considered before. Letters to the Editor might be edited for grammar, style, brevity and obvious factual accuracy. (We can't check every fact asserted, but if we realize something isn't true, we'll edit it or possibly not run the letter). Please keep submissions to about 300 words or less. Guest columns, for longer pieces that would be featured separately, are also welcome. Submit letters or questions to Bloomfield Patch Editor Art Aisner at Art.Aisner@patch.com.
In This article
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Bloomfield Hills Andover High School
4200 Andover Rd, Bloomfield Hills, MI -
Bloomfield Hills Lahser High School
3456 Lahser Rd, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Elizabeth
11:32 pm on Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Plan B is an inferior plan.
It may be workable, but it is inferior to the plan a YES vote on May 8th would provide. Plan B means the district will spend $30-$35 million to keep two buildings as they are. Spending that kind of money for no real improvements for education, for limited operational cost savings, and for a higher potential for a loss of curriculum would be throwing good money after bad.
Voting on May 8th is not a rush. This community and the district have been working toward it for 18 months. The plan proposed by the district is well thought out, reasonable, clearly the superior plan and a better value.
We should all VOTE YES on MAY 8th.
R Gibson
8:53 am on Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Elizabeth I do have to take issue with some of your assertions. "Spending that kind of money for no real improvements for education, for limited operational cost savings, and for a higher potential for a loss of curriculum would be throwing good money after bad." In reveiwing the document Ann posted from Dr. Glass, that frankly has more disclaimers on it then CVS has pills, I don't see any "real improvements for education". At best the document shows a lot of "maintains", but no concrete enhancements or increases. There doesn't appear to be any clear "real improvements for education". Additionally, I don't see the draconian reductions you and the other members of OBU suggest will occur. There are a lot of possibles, and maybes but no real tangible or confimred reductions. For the most part it appears that most of the current curriculm would be maintained under plan B. Can you please describe to me, in detail, where this "high potential for loss of curriculum will occur" under plan B which will be saved under plan A.
R Gibson
8:57 am on Wednesday, March 7, 2012
I am not asking these questions to be controversial, I want to make an educated decision on May 8th and frankly, with all the rhetoric floating around, it can be challenging to get through the chaff.
Joan Berndt
11:02 am on Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Many would agree that "draconian reductions" would include the loss of ninth graders in the main building to participate in special foreign language classes, advanced courses, music and performance groups, radio/tv, drama etc. We can't keep busing kids back and forth between campuses...it is a waste of money and a terrible waste of time and energy. Why would anyone want to spend 30-35 million taxpayer dollars to keep such an inferior arrangement with no upgraded and enlarged much needed facilities, when for a reasonable bond amount that will not cost the taxpayer any more than he is paying now, we can have the physical plant that is needed and the comprehensive curriculum that is valued for the next half century?
Cara McAlister
11:12 am on Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Teachers could drive to the current Lahser building for the students. Students should not have to drive to the teachers. There is no necessity to get rid of any curriculum in our two high schools. The "default" plan, which is what we get if the majority votes against the large tax bond (debt) is More for Less. Voting NO on May 8 actually maintains more for Bloomfield students. The administration of the district should be concerned with cutting costs that they incur. Stop plans to spend $1.1 million on the Doyle Center for yourselves and stop planning a Wellness Center for your employees and "other entities" which most of the public doesn't even know about yet. Stop planning a 3 year construction of a Maintenance Building at the Bowers School Farm. Have employees pick up 20% of their benefits cost, like most of the world does. Then, Bloomfield can continue to be a special place where 1,650 teenagers do not have to be crammed into one building at a vulnerable time in their lives.
J Arch
12:12 pm on Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Cara, I think you misunderstand the issue. It's not a question of whether the teachers drive to the students or the students get transported to the teachers. When you have the small high school population we now have divided in separate buildings, you don't have enough students in one place to offer a class at a full enough level to afford a teacher. That is the problem that has been growing the past several years with the diminishing populations at Lahser and Andover. Thus, keeping separate 9-12 populations at Andover and Lasher is simply no longer an option. You need to consolidate so that you can keep classes sized large enough to preserve those offerings that were able to be justified separately at Andover and Lahser as recently as 5-6 years ago. Plan B will solve some of that by putting larger concentrations of the same age kids in each building, but for those classes that draw across multiple grades such as A/P classes, foreign languages and other electives, there will still be an issue of not enough candidate kids on one place and thus there will still be reductions in those offerings. We will not have the Bloomfield Hills high school curriculum that was enjoyed by families 5-6 years ago, let alone less recently than that.
J. Wagner