Talent & Education

School closures in other states have Michigan education leaders preparing for what they say are inevitable closures and quarantines this fall.

Michigan schools are creating reopening plans for the fall during the coronavirus pandemic with little guidance from the state about what is required, and how they’ll be funded.

Will 18-year-olds eager for a college experience opt to stay home to be safe? Michigan State University is about to find out.

Despite planned safety protocols in schools, half of residents surveyed aren’t sold on the notion of returning children to classroom settings in the midst of a global pandemic. Thirty-six percent said schools would be safe, a drop since earlier polling.

MSU said in May it would reopen its campus in the fall. But rising coronavirus cases have led university officials to encourage students to take their classes online from their homes.

Grace’s story, first published by ProPublica Illinois, prompted outrage and debate across the country. Though a judge refused to set the girl free, the Michigan Court of Appeals ordered her immediate release from a juvenile detention facility in Detroit.

Some schools say classrooms aren’t safe, and others are hanging up the welcome sign (albeit with plenty of face masks). It’s confusing even for epidemiologists.

Michigan’s newly crowned Teacher of the Year is passionate about helping children, and he thinks it would help them to stay home this fall to lower the risks of the coronavirus.

Michigan districts are up against it to decide fall plans, and officials are worried that some will poach neighboring students. Superintendent Mike Rice wants to avoid that by freezing enrollment counts that are used to determine funding.

Michigan schools are likely to get less money in the coming state budget due to the economic crisis caused by coronavirus. One group urges lawmakers to make those cuts with a scalpel rather than an ax.

Black students drop out of Michigan colleges at a much higher rate than their white classmates. That graduation gap is third-worst in the country.

Grand Rapids joins Ann Arbor, Lansing and other large districts in planning to begin this fall with remote learning in all grades. A Republican bill, if passed, would threaten those districts with loss of state funds.

Depending on who you ask, standardized tests are either more important than ever as students return to school after almost six months at home, or are the last thing students and teachers need during a pandemic.

Michigan’s low-income high school grads will have an extra year to sign up for financial aid that provides free tuition to the state’s community colleges.

Detroit Public Schools Community District’s school board and superintendent doubled down on a reopening plan amid complaints from teachers, students and community members who said it’s too early to return to in-classroom instruction. Now it’s up to the Legislature to make administrative changes that would support public school districts in online learning.

In what could be a precursor to battles this fall over school attendance during the pandemic, a parent group won a court battle to require coronavirus testing of summer school students in Detroit.

Students in Lansing will start the school year online. Will other Michigan school districts do the same? Most districts expect to make their plans public in the coming weeks.

Detroit’s public university will welcome students back for the fall, but it will be anything but a normal semester.

Students may wear face masks and may eat lunch at their desks, but the majority of Michigan schools that have announced plans for the fall are planning to offer families the option of full-time, face-to-face instruction.

Protestors blocked buses from picking up children in Detroit Monday, in a tense scene that captured the struggle between education and safety amidst a pandemic.