How To Repair Crumbling Mortar Between Bricks

Posted on May 23, 2022

By Harold C. Ford

The May xi and eighteen meetings of the Flintstone Board of Pedagogy (FBOE) – together lasting nearly 12 hours – began with purported good news that Flintstone Community Schools (FCS) had been released from the imposition of an enhanced deficit elimination program (EDEP) past the Michigan Department of Treasury.

The Flint Board of Pedagogy listen to members of the public speak during Wednesday's meeting. (Photo by Tom Travis)

Whatever euphoria elicited by the EDEP-dismissal announcement soon evolved into a parade of FCS constituents anxiously and unanimously urging the district non to close schools – specifically Pierce Elementary and the Accelerated Learning University.

Ongoing infrastructure woes at its aging buildings continued to plague the district with reports of crumbling masonry at Doyle-Ryder and an inability to start up newly-installed air workout units at Pierce and Freeman due to electrical grid shortcomings.

The May meetings revisited an all-too-familiar theme of board disunity.

EDEP disappears, non so indebtedness

"I received a phone call from Treasury (Michigan Department of Treasury) yesterday," said Kevelin Jones, FCS superintendent, at the outset of the May eleven meeting. "In that telephone call, Treasury let me know that our district will no longer need to submit an enhanced arrears elimination plan."

FCS Superintendant Kevelin Jones. (Photo by Tom Travis)

Jones' announcement generated three rounds of smiles and adulation by FBOE members. "This ways … the country won't be looking over our shoulder," he said.

The district had been nether the watchful eye of Michigan's state government – specifically its Department of Treasury – for many years. About recently, 2 mended EDEPs were sent to Treasury by FCS in calendar twelvemonth 2022.

"This doesn't hateful Flint doesn't have a deficit," Jones cautioned.

Jones' circumspection has often been expressed by others:

"The district projects to remain in deficit until Fiscal Year 2035-36." –Michigan Department of Treasury, September, 2022
"You lot're definitely not going to be in splendid financial shape for a long time." –Holly Stefanski, assurance manager, Plante Moran, an auditing firm then serving FCS, January, 2022
"This (COVID relief funding) gives us the appearance that nosotros are not operating in a deficit. I want to stress … we are even so in a deficit." –Ayunnah Dompreh, then-FCS director of finances, February. 2022

ESSER funds provide temporary solvency

Jones said dismissal of the EDEP "is due to the work … done as information technology pertains to our ESSER (Uncomplicated and Secondary School Relief/ COVID relief) funds and having a fund balance. We are in a position that our fund balance is in a infinite where nosotros need to be at the time."

The positive FCS "fund balance" is achieved, temporarily, by ESSER funds from the federal government that total $144 million, an amount confirmed by Keiona Murphy, FCS assistant superintendent, in a recent interview with Due east Village Magazine ( EVM ).

"We notwithstanding need board members to eliminate some debt," Jones warned. "We still demand to make certain we are fiscally responsible."

Representatives of Plante Moran advised the FBOE in Dec 2022 that unless affirmative measures were undertaken to accost systemic shortcomings – peculiarly failing educatee enrollment – by 2024 FCS would likely circle dorsum to a familiar bleak fiscal profile that has existed for nearly two decades.

[A more complete overview of the FCS financial profile tin be plant in a May 16 online posting by EVM . ]

"To close or not to shut?"

"To close or not to close?" asked a Pierce teacher during a fourth dimension for public comment, "That is the question tonight."

Jones had said "two of our schools (are) in consideration of closure." He was referencing reports and rumors about the possible closures of the district'south Pierce and ALA buildings.

Handmade signs held by parents and students at the Flintstone Board of Educational activity meeting on Wed. (Photo past Tom Travis)

One day prior to the FBOE meeting, on May 10, WNEM Aqueduct 5 and ABC12 News reported on the possible closure of Pierce. Rumors had ALA'southward nontraditional students being relocated inside the Southwestern building alongside traditional students every bit a school within a schoolhouse.

"No decisions take been fabricated about any or which schools will be closed," advised Chris Del Morone, FBOE assistant secretary-treasurer.

Even so, thirty speakers paraded to the microphone expressing concern almost the possible closures. Pierce is located on Flint's near e side in the so-called E Village area close to the urban center's college and cultural center. ALA, an alternative schoolhouse serving students in grades 7-12, is also located on Flintstone's east side at 1602 South. Averill Ave., beyond from Dort Federal Event Eye, near the Evergreen Estate community.

At the conclusion of its May meetings no building closures or accompanying staff layoffs were announced.

[Excerpted comments from most of the speakers opposing the schoolhouse closures can exist read in a May 16 online posting past EVM. ]

"All of our buildings gotta be renovated."

Danielle Green, so-FBOE treasurer, reflecting on the status of Flint's aging schoolhouse infrastructure, said in Baronial 2022, "All our buildings gotta be renovated." Her statement has proved prophetic.

Durant-Tuuri Mott school on University Ave near Kettering University. (Photograph by Tom Travis)

New reports of crumbling infrastructure – literal and figurative – were brought to the lath'due south attending at their May meetings.

Doyle-Ryder

According to Pete Medor, FCS manager of operations, the masonry – mortar and bricks – of iv roof chimneys on the 121-year-old Doyle-Ryder edifice need repair. The needed repairs –unexpected and not included in the previously-approved upkeep for blackness mold remediation and roof repair – would amount to just more than $31,000.

"I worked in that schoolhouse for several years," recollected Joyce Ellis-McNeal, FBOE president. "Everything is falling apart at that place."

A pupil masking up as she enters Doyle-Ryder school. (Photograph by Tom Travis)

Due to the presence of black mold, Doyle-Ryder has been closed to students well-nigh of the 2022-22 school year; its students are currently attending Potter.

FBOE approved the funding request by a 6-0 vote margin.

Pierce, Potter, Freeman

For some two years, Johnson Controls has been attempting to upgrade HVAC (heating, ventilation, air-conditioning) systems in six of Flint's school buildings at a toll tag that exceeds $fifteen million. The electric infrastructure in three of those buildings –Pierce, Potter, and Freeman – did non pass a contempo electrical inspection that would permit operation of newly-installed HVAC infrastructure.

Freeman elementary school in the due south end of the Flint Community School Commune. (Photo past Tom Travis)

According to Medor, the problem at 70-year-quondam Pierce was "modest" and would require no additional funding to resolve.

The electrical problems at 70-year-sometime Potter and 71-year-old Freeman were accounted "major" and would require significant additional funding to repair: $62,104 at Freeman; $75,295 at Potter.

"The service that comes into these buildings is not acceptable," Medor said. Johnson Controls told FCS assistants that service on both buildings needed replacement; they would deliver a so-called alter club (cost adjustment) to the district.

Installation, when started, would take 3 weeks. Hot spring temperatures – already reaching the 70s and 80s – are heating upwards FCS buildings.

A motion petitioning Johnson Controls to "honor the contract … without the change club" was passed by a 6-0 margin. Additionally, the board will seek legal counsel on the matter.

Intra-lath tensions

Tensions betwixt and amidst its members have been a constant in the nearly half-dozen years this reporter has covered FBOE meetings. The most dramatic case, in March 2022, was an alleged assault of FBOE Treasurer Laura MacIntyre by Green, then-FBOE president, who has been barred from board omnipresence for several months via issuance of a Personal Protection Order requested by MacIntyre.

The nearly 12 hours of May meetings offered more testify of FBOE tensions:

May 11: The lath's president and vice president, McNeal and McIntosh respectively, engaged in a nearly hr-long brouhaha that featured tense verbal exchanges, name-calling, raised voices, abiding interruptions, and accusations of dishonesty. These behaviors tin can be witnessed in the final 60 minutes of a You Tube recording of that coming together or in a shorter, excerpted version that was published online in May by EVM .
May xviii: Board members sparred over board policies. And Trustee Allen Gilbert, a pastor at Bethel Apostolic Church in Flint, said near the finish of the 5.5-hour meeting: "I came (tonight) with the intent to have one of our lath officers removed from their office … The Holy Ghost has condemned me that I should not do that." A short time later he admonished McNeal: "Don't send them emails to me about sis Carolyn, Boose, Chris, or anyone else … This is what's poisoning our lath."

Plentiful online resources address intra-lath cooperation such equally a site managed by Gdp Consulting. GDP'south site includes an commodity titled "vii essential components to insure intra-board cooperation…" The first component – "Commitment to resolution of the issue" – reads, in office: "Some issues are merely nuisances. Boards want them to get away. I way to make that happen is to engage other entities in the trouble-solving procedure."

The FBOE has, in fact, been visited by other nonprofit organizations – including Michigan Association of School Board representatives and members of the Pontiac School District'southward (PSD) board – that rendered counsel about effective management of a school organisation.

In November 2022, Shaniqua Smith, PSD treasurer, told Flint'southward lath: "Information technology doesn't look good when you're divided … It makes you wait dysfunctional." MacIntyre's response: "We're not going to present a united front end as if everything is OK, considering information technology's not OK."

"Due diligence"

FCS administration and FBOE members wrangled over service contractors – nutrient services, auditors, custodial and maintenance. – for more than an hour at its May xviii meeting.

Carol McIntosh, FBOE vice president, led the charge confronting credence of contracts that had been vetted by the FCS assistants via the RFP (Request for Proposal) process. "I don't vote on stuff I ain't got no information for," she said. "It's 150 percent irresponsible."

Jones countered that "due diligence" had been exercised by his administration during the RFP process – that FBOE members could attend – and that contracts were available past the time of the board meeting as promised. "It gets a petty difficult to where we take to now figure out how to start over."

"It's a no for me," McIntosh continued. "I'm not votin' for nothin' and I don't have the information."

The board tabled a decision on the $ii,550,000 custodial and maintenance contract to a future meeting by a unanimous half-dozen-0 vote. The contracts with providers of auditing and nutrient services were both canonical by 5-1 votes; the lone dissenter was McIntosh.

Simply 7 days earlier at the board'south May 11 meeting, McIntosh successfully campaigned to pay an attorney profitable the district's counsel, Charis Lee, in an appellate affair. Zilch information was provided FBOE members: no invoice; not fifty-fifty a name. Nonetheless, the McIntosh movement passed by a 4-2 vote of the lath.

* * * * *

The adjacent scheduled meetings of the FBOE: June eight (Commission of the Whole/COW); June 15 (regular coming together). Meetings accept place at Accelerated Learning University, 1602 S. Averill Ave., Flint, MI 48503. Special meetings are frequently scheduled; interested persons should bank check the FCS website for updates.

Meetings normally begin at 6:30 and tin exist seen remotely by registering, in advance, at the district'due south website. Recordings of meetings can exist viewed on YouTube.

EVM Education Crush reporter can exist reached at hcford1185@gmail.com.