Sunrise in Detroit, Michigan 48223 Image by: Cynthia Gladden
By: Cynthia Gladden March 5, 2017
The Gompers Elementary Middle School community has been encouraged to take the necessary measures to prevent the dilapidation of the $21.4 million school that opened its doors in the 2011 school year, in Detroit, Michigan.
Parents and students were notified in January 2017 that Gompers Elementary /Middle School could possibly close its doors in June 2017, along with 37 other schools in Metro Detroit. The 111,882 square-foot school consolidated and replaced three older schools: Harding, Vetal, and Gompers Elementary Schools. Harding Elementary and its Annex were demolished and the new 2-story building was constructed on that site, which houses Pre-K thru 8th grade students. The closing will cause a hardship for many families, as many Detroit Public Schools have already been closed due to the decline of Detroit and state testing scores for children. The city has no plans for the schools facing being vacated and this will only add despair to a city on the edge of rebuilding itself.
The children have to be educated and the Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder has delayed the decision to close from February 2017 to May 2017, giving the Michigan Department of Education time to come up with a plan for making sure the children are educated properly and are able to bring up test scores.
Schools that do not pass the state testing three years in a row are subjected to closing instead of seeking solutions to better the test scores. School closings lead to more abandoned buildings in a city whose population has a steady decline. Detroit parents are faced with, where to educate their children, who have dreams to succeed. Finding a place to meet the educational needs for the children of Detroit be a chore most parents and they will find it hard to fulfill their children’s educational requirements within the city limits, since many schools have already closed.
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Images by: Cynthia Gladden