Michigan schools waiting anxiously for word on whether they’ll be shut down next year will have to wait a little longer.
State officials initially planned to release their annual state rankings, which will be used to decide which schools will be forced to close, by the end of this month. Now, they’re saying the rankings — and any closure decisions — won’t come until at least January.
The delay means that schools at risk of closure won’t be getting bad news before the winter vacation. But it also keeps the schools in the dark longer about whether they could face sanctions, including closure — giving communities less time to prepare for the possibility that students might have to find new schools for next year.
A spokesman for the Michigan Department of Education, which produces the so-called “top-to-bottom” list based on test scores, said the new timeline is an effort to coordinate with the state School Reform office, which will make the decision on school closings.
The reform office said last summer that it would shut down schools that appeared in the bottom 5 percent of state rankings for three or more years, except in cases where closure would create a hardship for students.
That announcement was surprising because schools had been told they wouldn’t be held accountable for low scores during the first years of the new M-STEP exam.
The change came after lawmakers approved legislation designed to resuscitate the debt-saddled Detroit Public Schools. The legislation included a requirement that all Detroit schools — district and charter — with three years at the bottom of the rankings be closed.
The reform office said last summer that it would apply the same rules to schools across the state.
Kurt Weiss, a spokesman for the reform office, said the office “is continuing its review of the data” and has not yet “completed recommendations for how to address chronically failing schools.”
Still not clear is how schools in Detroit’s main school district will be handled, since Gov. Snyder has said he is reviewing two different legal opinions about whether the fact that the Detroit Public Schools are now officially a new district called the Detroit Public Schools Community District requires the state to wait three years before closing down its low-performing schools.
“The goal remains to give kids in Michigan – regardless of where they attend school – a quality education, but no final determinations have been made around what actions might be taken,” Weiss said.