MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI — In Could, Muskegon County voters can be requested to resume a regional faculty enchancment package deal that would offer cash for 18 counties and constitution colleges to spend money on safety and know-how.
In 2014, voters authorized a Millig Regional Enchancment for the Muskegon Center Faculty District (MAISD) that’s set to run out this yr. Officers say this won’t elevate taxes as a result of it’s already in place.
If authorized within the Could 2 election, the tax will proceed to be charged 0.9831 mills, or $0.9831 on each $1,000 of taxable evaluation, for the subsequent 10 years, from 2024 to 2033. For the proprietor of a house value $200,000, that may come Officers say taxes are just below $100 a yr.
The tax will generate roughly $5.5 million in its first yr, which can be distributed on a per-pupil depend foundation throughout 18 public colleges and constitution academies: Fruitport, Houlton, Mauna Shores, Montague, Muskegon, Muskegon Heights, North Muskegon, Oakridge, Orchard View and Ravenna Reeths-Puffer, Whitehall, Muskegon Conference Academy, Muskegon Maritime Academy, Muskegon Montessori Academy for Environmental Change, Three Oaks Academy, Timberline Academy, and MAISD.
You’ll find a breakdown of how a lot funding every faculty district acquired within the years previous to MAISD website. The most recent breakdown from 2021 is linked right here.
Every faculty district additionally has a Expertise and Security Report on their faculty’s web site detailing how their earlier cash was spent.
Native faculty leaders say renewing this funding is important to maintaining know-how and safety infrastructure updated in Muskegon County colleges, which assist practically 26,000 college students.
Fruitport superintendent Jason Kennedy mentioned current incidents at colleges throughout the nation have demonstrated how vital it’s to spend money on faculty security.
We all know that learners don’t be taught on the highest ranges if they don’t really feel protected. Kennedy advised MLive/The Muskegon Chronicle if fundamental wants should not met, studying won’t occur. “So, as we take into consideration the significance of security and safety, we should acknowledge that continued investments in improved infrastructure, in improved security and safety, will result in studying on the highest ranges.”
Every faculty district determines that it’ll use funds from Milage to enhance regional colleges.
For instance, Fruitport has beforehand used a few of its funding for safety upgrades corresponding to buying new safety cameras and enhancing the world’s wi-fi infrastructure to ensure Fruitport’s surveillance methods are updated, Kennedy mentioned.
At Mona Shores, the funding has been used to rent two faculty useful resource officers from the Norton Shores Police Division, which Superintendent Invoice O’Brien mentioned not solely supplies added security, but additionally helps construct relationships with college students.
“They’re an integral a part of each faculty day,” O’Brien mentioned. “They’re within the cafeteria, having lunch with the children. They’re constructing this proactive relationship and sort of altering the child’s perspective of what a police officer is or needs to be, and actually broadens that function.”
One benefit of getting so many regional colleges, Kennedy defined, versus requiring every district to hunt its personal separate pool of safety funding, is that Muskegon space colleges have been in a position to develop a countywide contingency operations plan at the side of native legislation enforcement.
That manner, if there’s a faculty emergency in Muskegon County, every faculty district has a unified and coherent response plan, permitting legislation enforcement businesses to reply extra successfully within the occasion of an emergency, Kennedy mentioned.
“As a result of we’re coming to this with a regional method, the place all of the native faculty districts are concerned due to the Regional Strengthening Group, it actually permits us to benefit from these robust partnerships with not only one faculty district, however all the faculty districts within the district, creating a plan regardless of being Distinctive to every particular person faculty district, it stays in robust partnership with native legislation enforcement officers,” he mentioned.
On the know-how aspect, the Provincial Enchancment Group has helped counties improve their know-how infrastructure and procure sufficient {hardware} for a “one-to-one” system, the place each scholar has entry to a tool to reinforce their studying.
Kennedy mentioned that funding has confirmed notably very important through the COVID-19 pandemic, when colleges needed to rapidly shift to on-line studying and each scholar wanted a tool to proceed studying from residence.
“Had it not been for the big variety of workers, Fruitport would have been in such a tough place that we might have needed to discover funding someplace to assist instructing and studying sources,” he mentioned.
Expertise upgrades are additionally vital to growing digital literacy, Kennedy defined, which is particularly vital for at this time’s job market, which requires highschool graduates to have a robust sense of digital literacy.
Voters can be taught extra concerning the regional enchancment package deal by contacting their native district supervisor, or by contacting MAISD Director Randy Lindquist by electronic mail at [email protected] or by telephone 231-767-7229.
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