The Novi School board (at the behest of the Superintendent Peter Dion) is once again considering allowing district employees to enroll their children in our school district. An attempt to offer this same benefit failed about 3 years ago.

Michigan Public Act 227 makes it easier for children of employees to attend schools in the district where their parents work. This act, which was passed in July, 2004, is not automatic. Each school district can decide independently whether or not to implement it.

Per Assistant Superintendent Bob Schram, 25 of the 28 school districts in Oakland County currently offer this to their employees. There is certainly one major benefit to Novi. It brings more kids to the district–thus more revenue–at a time when the budget is tight.

Unfortunately, there are concerns that have yet to be addressed during the two school board meetings where this issue has been discussed:

• We would now have students in the Novi Community School District who are not really part of our “community”.
• People who are not paying taxes in our district would get to benefit from the use of our facilities. The Novi school district only gets “operational” tax dollars from the state for these students, but they don’t get funding for facility use. Will these non-residents help pay off the 26.4 million dollar bond that Novi residents just passed? Of course not.
• Approving this benefit could potentially create a division in the community, as slots in those limited extracurricular activities could be taken by non-residents bumping out children of residents.
• If there are 3 openings at a particular school, and 4 students of district employees want to get in, who decides (and under what criteria) who is selected? Do teachers get preference over custodial staff? Does the union president’s child get preference over the elementary school secretary?
• Suppose you have 3 students and 2 slots at the High School. Do you take the football star and the Nation Honor Society member over others?

Board member Julie Abrams did ask about how some of these decisions would be made. Unfortunately, the administration never clearly answered the question, and Ms. Abrams did not press the issue.

There are many district employees who have moved into Novi because they wanted to educate their children in our school district. Normally, this is a costly decision. What do we tell them? Why don’t non-resident employees consider doing the same, helping out those current city residents who have had their houses on the market for an inordinate amount of time?

Mr. Schram stated that he spoke to 10 Oakland County schools offering this benefit and none reported any drawbacks. personally, I’d prefer to know why the remaining holdouts have resisted.

Superintendent Dion has promised to do a survey of employees to see how many plan to take advantage of this benefit. His report is due to the board at this Thursday’s meeting (7/12). I’m curious as to what relevance that will have on the matter.

Good or bad, it looks like the board is set to pass this eventual action item. Unfortunately, as is the a trend, it seems that they will leave it up to the administration to determine all of the rules.

Although I’m not overly passionate about this issue (unlike the “lack of community access”), it just does not smell right to me. It is certainly ironic that we’re looking to hand this gift out to a group whose local, state and national unions have historically been opposed to schools of choice for everyone but themselves.