By Harold C. Ford
During his recent visit to Flint Community Schools (FCS), Michigan Superintendent of Instruction Michael Rice both lauded the district’s recent academic achievements and tempered that praise with concerns around the district’s budget.
“I want to commend the district for progress under the partnership agreement,” Rice said during an appearance before the Flint Board of Education (FBOE) on Dec. 18, 2024.
Initially, FCS found itself in an expanded partnership with the Michigan Department of Education in July 2018 after being designated as “chronically failing.” At that time, FCS was expected to increase student attendance to 90 percent, reduce out-of-school suspensions by 10 percent, and increase state exam performance by at least 10 percent. A newer iteration of that partnership began Apr. 17, 2023, which included the Genesee Intermediate School District, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and Michigan State University.
During his December visit, Rice specifically noted “new literary resources, classroom libraries that reflect diverse authors and helped to increase student engagement in literacy instruction” and “small-group targeted literacy interventions” and use of multiple grants “to provide professional development for staff.”
He cited these initiatives as “an essential step toward improving instruction and, by extension, student achievement” and said the district’s “alignment of resources with evidenced-based strategies” demonstrated its commitment to continuous improvement.
“At the same time,” the superintendent cautioned, “it is essential to address some of the district’s larger structural challenges.” He then encouraged FCS leadership toward the goal of a “structurally balanced budget in which recurring revenue is equal to recurring expenditures.”
“Substantial improvements”
For its own part, FCS had issued a public statement on Dec. 12, 2024 that provided some details about meeting 18-month benchmark goals in literacy and mathematics.
According to the statement posted to its website, FCS demonstrated “substantial improvements in M-STEP/PSAT literacy and math and NWEA scholar growth in reading and mathematics.”
M-STEP is the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress that assesses student achievement in English Language Arts, mathematics, social studies, and science in grades 3-11. The PSAT (Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test), a creation of the College Board, is administered in grades 8-10 and measures proficiency in English language arts, math, science, and social studies.
NWEA (Northwest Evaluation Association) is a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt that creates academic assessments for students in pre-K through grade 12.
Notably, however, no FCS test data for these assessments accompanied its Dec. 12 statement.
The statement further noted “systems improvement,” including classroom coaching, literacy support, and “data-driven decision-making” as well as upgrades at Potter Elementary and the district’s Brownell/Holmes campus.
“Structural deficit”
While recognizing FCS improvements in December, Rice also addressed the dire, long-term, and ongoing financial profile of the school district.
He noted a $14 million annual recurring deficit – as reported by Chandra Cleaves, FCS finance director – “a fact,” he said, “that was obscured by the substantial Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funding” (better known as COVID-relief funding) that FCS received in the wake of the pandemic.
Rice reported that Cleaves told him, “continuing to spend in the same fashion would fully drain [the district’s] fund balance in two and a half years.”
The superintendent then concluded to the FBOE: “It’s critical that you reduce and ultimately eliminate the structural deficit so that you are able to fully serve Flint students.”
As he did on his last visit in November 2023, he emphasized that rightsizing the district’s building lineup, staff, and budget will allow FCS more time to focus on the needs of its students.
Rightsizing and indebtedness
Rightsizing Flint’s public school system has been a recurring theme for decades as student counts plummeted, state aid shrank, and a bloated building lineup and staff size sapped the district’s diminishing financial resources.
While the call for FCS to right-size has echoed again and again from auditors, financial advisors, state officials, citizens, district employee groups and administrators, as well as FBOE members, a few examples include:
- November 2019: “Even with an austere budget augmented by massive cuts in spending, the FCS deficit would not be erased until the 2035-36 school year …” – East Village Magazine (EVM) report
- November 2019: “We have too much infrastructure for the number of students we’re trying to educate.” – Derrick Lopez, then-FCS superintendent
- May 25, 2023: “You only need half of the existing buildings.” – Nicole Blocker, senior vice president of the district’s auditing firm at the time
- June 2023: “Once that [COVID-19] money dries up, if careful adjustments are not made, the district could be facing a financial cliff.” – Brian Jones, FCS interim chief financial officer
- June 2023: “We need to get rid of these dilapidated schools.” – A.C. Dumas, community activist
- June 2023: “You guys have done zero to address your operational deficit …” – Bruce Jordan, teacher union official, during a FBOE meeting
- Jan. 26, 2024: “The situation in Flint Community Schools, with approximately $56,093,404 in debt, with an operational deficit of $14,420,492 … is undoubtedly challenging. – FCS press release
- Apr. 4, 2024: “Flint Community Schools remains committed to making informed decisions regarding the right-sizing, closure, and repurposing of buildings…” – joint statement by United Teachers of Flint and FCS
The FCS financial profile rocketed into red numbers with a $20 million loan taken out by the district in 2014. That same year, then-auditing firm Plante Moran informed FCS leadership that it was encumbered by debt totaling $22 million.
The district’s massive debt has plagued the administrations of at least seven FCS superintendents: Linda Thompson (2008-12); Lawrence Watkins (2013-15); Bilal Tawaab (2015-18); Gregory Weatherspoon (2018); Derrick Lopez (2018-20); Anita Steward (2020-21); and Kevelin Jones (2021-present).
The debt has been exacerbated by declining student enrollment and loss of concomitant state aid. FCS enrollment peaked at 47,867 students in 1968. Rice told the FBOE that FCS enrollment currently stands at 2,732 students.
A building lineup that was once 54 structures has very recently been whittled to ten. Over 41 years, FCS leadership closed 45 buildings from 1976 to 2017, an average of more than one building each year. For the next seven years, during a period of precipitous loss of students, no FCS buildings were completely shut down until this school year when Pierce Elementary was shuttered. Neithercut, Eisenhower, and ALA (Accelerated Learning Academy) buildings are to follow in the next two school years.
“It’s critical that you reduce and ultimately eliminate the structural deficit so that you are able to fully serve Flint students,” Rice reminded the FBOE in December.
“Decades in the making”
Following Rice’s comments, FBOE members were provided a chance to respond. Laura MacIntyre, the board’s assistant secretary/treasurer, was first up.
“I’m hopeful we can continue the partnership,” she said. “We’re in a structural deficit … decades in the making … that has been designed to weaken public education and to take away autonomy from particularly vulnerable districts like Flint.”
She further asked that those in partnership with FCS “help us rectify those decades of structural deficiency instead of making us responsible.”
“Flint was the exception”
Notably, Flint was passed over by the State of Michigan last school year as lawmakers approved $114 million from the state School Aid Fund to pay off the legacy debts of several current and former school systems that faced financial distress including Pontiac, Benton Harbor, Muskegon Heights, Ypsilanti, Willow Run, and Inkster.
Rice acknowledged this in his response to MacIntyre.
“State policy has undermined public-school districts across the state,” Rice agreed, “particularly urban public-school districts, without a doubt.”
Rice also noted that charter schools – also called public school academies (PSAs) – comprise 14 of the 35 school districts that currently operate in Genesee County.
A 2024 study by EVM found that, if combined, the recent enrollment numbers of charter schools in Genesee County – 6,442 students – would make charters the second largest school population in the county. (And that each student takes with her/him nearly $10 thousand in state aid to the school s/he attends, including public charters.)
“These PSAs are predominantly … in urban areas [like Flint] … largely unfettered, largely able to grow without challenge,” Rice said. “It does not serve us well.”
Finally, Rice addressed Flint’s exclusion from the list of schools that received debt relief from the state in December 2023.
“It is awkward to be sitting in a chair having to deal with past bad decisions,” he said. “I tried to get debt relief for seven school districts in the state and we were successful with getting debt relief for six of them. Flint was the exception.”
This article also appears in East Village Magazine’s January 2025 issue.
