Here’s the detail of the Governor’s plan to close schools

Mar. 31, 2020  PLYMOUTH VOICE.

Plymouth Michigan News

Gov. Whitmer is soon expected to sign an executive order to close Michigan schools for the remainder of the school year, according to a report published by Bridge Magazine.

Details for the plan were obtained by two people familiar with the drafting of the proposed executive order and four others knowledgeable of the outlines. Those informed sources say the order is likely to be announced today or tomorrow.

• School buildings will be closed for the remainder of the school year, which typically ends in June
• Schools will provide some form of remote learning for students through the remainder of the school year. It was unclear whether that learning would involve grades or be mandatory for students.
• What that learning looks like — online education, printed packets of school work that students can work on at home, or a combination — will be developed by individual school districts and approved by intermediate school districts based on the resources available in schools and in student homes.
• High school seniors will graduate, even if they were still taking courses required for graduation by the Michigan Merit Curriculum this semester, as long as their school district determines they were on pace to graduate before the state-mandated shutdown March 16. Several school sources said they anticipated statewide graduation rates to be as high or higher than normal.
• Students in grades kindergarten through 11th grade will advance to their next grade at the beginning of the next school year, assuming their school district determines they were on pace to advance before the shutdown.
• Schools will receive their full state funding through the end of the school budget year, which runs through June 30. State funding to school districts is determined by the number of students enrolled.
• To get that state funding, schools must agree to continue to pay school employees, including teachers, through the end of the school year, which ends June 30
• Michigan’s third-grade reading law, which recommends third-graders who are more than a year behind in reading be retained in third grade, will not be enforced this year. This would have been the first year the law went into effect. Even if students had returned to classrooms April 14, as had been the plan, third-graders would have missed a critical four weeks of reading instruction before taking the M-STEP, Michigan’s standardized test. Reading scores on the M-STEP were to be used to identify struggling readers for retention.
• Current high school juniors will be given an opportunity next fall to take the SAT at the expense of the state, to make up for the state-funded college entrance exam they would have taken in March if schools had not been closed.

READ MORE:

Whitmer to end Michigan school year…

Plymouth Voice.