Madison Heights board members refuse to vote on plan to let in more Detroit students

MADISON HEIGHTS — The local school district will not allow more children from outside its boundaries to attend school, ending a month-long controversy to bring Detroit students into the Oakland County suburb to help close a projected $1.5 million deficit next year.

The school board refused to vote on a motion presented by interim Superintendent John Telford during its meeting at Wilkinson Middle School Monday night. Hearing the motion would have required each board member to vote on whether or not the district should raise its current cap on school-of-choice students by about 1,000 from the current ceiling of 485. In March, Telford proposed raising the cap and recruiting students mostly from Detroit to obtain $7,500 per pupil in state funding for the district. The proposal was beaten back by Madison Heights parents in an April town hall meeting.

Telford said he gave the district his “best shot” to close the deficit by proposing to bring Detroiters to Madison Heights.

“When I first came on board and took a look at everything and said to myself: ‘The only way for us to rescue our district is to get more students,’ ” Telford said.

Board member Mick Hohner said he opposed raising the cap out of simple financial calculations: It costs $11,000 to educate a high school student and the state only gives $7,500 in aid per student.

“If we open the cap, I can almost guarantee it that 80 percent will come to high school. So now from a financial position, why would you want to incur a $3,500 loss per year in the high school?”

Board member Jennifer Lorenz said she supports lifting the cap, even though her daughter was injured during a fight between school-of-choice students in a Madison Heights elementary school last week.

“Unfortunately the child that started this fight was a school-of-choice child,” Lorenz said, adding that the principal told her the child is being expelled.

Nonetheless, Lorenz said because failing to lift the cap guarantees the district will not raise more revenue, she’s requesting the board draft a letter explaining which schools will have to be closed, how many employees will have to be laid off and which services must be privatized. Lorenz said believes the state will not accept the district’s deficit-elimination plan.

Both opponents and supporters of raising the school-of-choice cap attacked the board for not voting on the motion. Joyce Shone, a member of the affirmative action activist group BAMN, said the board’s refusal to vote is telling.

“Anybody that thinks that you’re doing anything other than stereotyping and using prejudice against Detroit students couldn’t be dissuaded by your silence,” she said.

Madison Heights resident Patrick Feeney said he agreed that the board should have spoken out on the motion instead of refusing to bring it to a vote.

“Quite frankly I agree with those people from BAMN. You did not take a public stand here, which you should have. One way or the other you should have taken a public stand,” Feeney said.

Aside from not lifting the cap, the board also voted on criteria to find a permanent superintendent, which led Telford to say he was ready to leave his contract early if the board requested he step down as superintendent.